Well, so much for not having a hiatus. But I won't dwell on the events between then and now, because I don't remember
the interesting details and I'm not good at making them up, so it would likely be boring. I graduated, had to leave a town and some people I
cared about, and others I didn't much care about, and I've spent the last week trying to incorporate all my new possessions into my room while
maintaining some sense of order. All the cleaning and organizing is a bit of a farce--all these neat little arrangements I make will either
remain due to neglect, and gather copious amounts of dust, or fall apart as soon as I start actually doing stuff. I admire those who can keep
a neat environment while not spending, or feeling like they spend, all their time maintaining it. It has been fun though, arranging all my
books and admiring them in their new homes, actual shelves rather than crates. Now I begin an endless process of picking ones out to read or
flip through, or refer to.

That brings us up to date then, sort of. Today I went to the bank with 2 years worth of change and dumped it into the
"Penny Arcade," a nice machine that counts them out, and doesn't even take a cut like the old "coin star" one they had in a supermarket. It
seems very well designed, as it appeared to perform perfectly on acceptance and rejection. Despite the dust, residue and who knows what else
on my coins, it didn't reject any good ones, and it gave back the few Euro Cents I had left in there. At one point the machine's bag filled up
and an employee replaced it. The total: $66.06. I collect a lot of change. I thought of buying something special with the money, rather than
letting it trickle out of my pocket on quotidian things, but what would I really be rewarding? All I did was drop my coins in a container for
2 years and let them sit there, extracting quarters when I needed to do laundry. That money would've done me more good earning interest in the
bank, but admittedly a trivial amount. So I can't really justify a purchase with this money by saying I'm rewarding myself. I suppose it's
reasonable to say I can point to something and say "I bought that with 2 years of small change," whereas spending it on food and transport, one
hardly even notices it. But it would be foolish to spend it on something I don't really need, just for the pointing ability. Perhaps I can
get some books with it. Not quite as flashy for pointing as electronics products, but probably more useful in the end. Anyway I haven't spent
it yet, but tomorrow will be the test as I fill up a metrocard and prepare for the first time to pay $2 for a subway ride. Will I dig in to
the proceeds, or put them away and go to the bank? We shall see...

In a week and a half or so I depart for Grenada to visit Al. If at some point I'm not served a tasty tropical drink
while lying on a beach, I'll be disappointed. I rarely take trips like this because I tend to value material goods over experiences when
spending money. But for some reason, when I found out Al was there it just seemed like the thing to do. The trip will begin the day after
playing my first show with my new band, or rather the band that I'm newly a member of. I hesitate to call it my band because I'm not a creative
element, at least not yet. Strange to be in that position, but it should be alllll right.

Went into Pop's Pizza tonight. Another customer walked in and said one word to the staff: "slice." That's the way it
ought to be, I thought. The word I most object to in a pizza order is "cheese" (except when preceded by 'extra'). If it didn't have cheese it
wouldn't be pizza. If all it has is cheese and sauce, it's not necessary to call it a cheese slice, it's just a slice. That was the one flaw
at Bella Napoli in Ann Arbor, when I asked for a slice they would say "cheese slice?" Ah well. I was slightly disappointed to note that the
standard price for a slice is now $2.00, but so it is for a subway ride, so I guess I'll have to accept it. Maybe they should start making $2
bills again.

Lately the news, about the world, the country and this city, seems to be so negative that although I don't mind reading
it, I don't much like talking about it anymore. I'd rather just put my head down and keep going, hoping it doesn't affect me too much. I'm
speaking mostly of financial news, things like bad job markets and increasing costs of living and such. It all sucks a whole lot, but then
again, things have been (and/or seemed) worse before, and a lot of people still managed to keep Cruising.

People say "you can't take it with you" when you die, to suggest that you shouldn't expend so much time and energy
trying to acquire material goods. I was thinking it's kind of faulty. I guess the assumption is, you can "take" experiences "with you" because
in the afterlife you'll still have the (un)pleasant memory of them. But hey, maybe people that like having lots of money can remember what they
did with the money, or even the act of getting the money is a pleasant thought to them. I guess some people have high paying jobs that are very
stressful, so it becomes less fun, but hey, there's always a choice. Also, who needs those pleasant memories in heaven? Surely any earthly
memories pale in comparison with paradise. And if earthly memories are what appeals to you, God could always plant some in your mind, Total
Recall-style. On the other hand, if Satan found out you were using memories of your past life to lessen your suffering in Hell, I'm sure he
would immediately wipe them out.

Then I started thinking, what if you could take it with you? Or more interestingly, what if the afterlife were more
like this life than religion tells us? What if it were just kind of, another life, in a different place but still with the memory of your past
life. And because of that, people would tend to do better in the afterlife, and it would be a better place in general because the lessons
learned on earth could be applied here. People who really screwed up the first time around would effectively be given another chance. Systems
that don't work on earth are improved upon in this place. Opinion is probably bitterly divided between the afterlife being the last one, and
there being an infinite number of them (but all in different places, unlike normal reincarnation theories). People who only believe in one
afterlife probably think, "well now I'm on my last life, I'd better make the most of it." The other side thinks "this is great, I can do
whatever I want, and I'll keep starting over!" If people really took these philosophies seriously and behaved according to them, it might even
divide the whole society in two. It's late right now but I'm going to think more about this, because the philosophies could get a lot more
complicated than that, as they do in this life.

Saw "X2" tonight and it was excellent. Special effects and action sequences are getting so fast-paced these days that
it's almost getting hard to see what's happening. It's like you get the idea that the guy spun this way or stabbed someone that way, but you're
not sure if you really saw it. This is certainly a more realistic approach though, and I prefer it to a lot of slow motion, which now that I
think about it, this movie seemed completely devoid of.

Brooke Burke is like a cultural ambassador for a certain element in the world. It's not the real world of course, but
the rich world, where life has become so meaningless that all there is to do is drink. Maybe rich isn't fair, rather middle class-and-up with
soul-sucking jobs. There's an overwhelming sameness in the places she visits--the decor or the favored local beverage might change, and hey the
natural beauty is great sometimes, but it seems that all that matters to these people is drinking and "dancing." Is there even a point to being
in an exotic locale if you're just going to clubs? I guess there must be. The cultural output of these places has become devices to make
drinking easier: on the Spanish Riviera, it was a glass in a sling worn around the neck, with "traditional" beads and such, for a constant supply
of alcohol all day with the minimum effort. All so they don't have to face life for a while.

I'm worried I'll discover a related sameness when I tour around the country with my new band later in the summer. The
idea of driving all around the country has a certain cool to it, but I'm afraid what I'll realize is that apart from a few spots of natural beauty
and cities, the country really isn't that interesting, especially from a fast-moving car. It's almost painful to think about how much nondescript
suburbia there is. And the expanses of highway in the middle of nowhere, although there's nothing intrinsically bad about it and I'm glad the
road is there...it isn't going to be too interesting. But perhaps I'll be proven wrong and we'll run into lots of interesting places and people.
Just in case I'm bringing plenty of reading material.

I just realized it's slightly ironic that I write that second paragraph a day before I go on my little trip to Grenada.
Well...I'm going for the natural beauty. And of course to visit my good friend Al.

It'll be another mini-hiatus as I go to Grenada from now until Tuesday. If anyone's in the neighborhood feel free to
stop by, otherwise I'll report back on being served drinks while I lounge on the beach...maybe.

Day 1 in Grenada. The flight landed at about 7:30 and I was surprised to find it totally dark there. In fact the
landing was a bit scary, because I couldn't see a damn thing out of my window until we were about 10 feet from the ground. I later found out
that due to latitude, sunrise is at 6am, sunset at 6pm. I found Al and we got a cab to the campus, which was a short but harrowing ride.
Each time an oncoming car appeared, the driver would head straight toward it, then casually swerve around it at the last moment, with no sign
of any concern. I eventually got used to this driving style, as it was universal there. The cabbie drove around the entire campus honking his
horn before letting us off, apparently to advertise his services. Honking of horns was another universal part of the Grenada transportation
experience.

Al showed me around the campus that night. I met several of his fellow students, who were in various degrees of
shellshock due to final exams having ended that day. They were very nice people of widely varying nationalities--the first two I met were
Lebanese and Nigerian. The campus was quite beautiful even by night. Like much of Grenada, it was on a hill, so a big view is only a short
yet arduous walk away. It's also on the ocean, and has a black sand beach on one side. We sat on a rocky peninsula and watched the ocean,
illuminated by a brilliant moon. I was introduced to some of the various cats that live on the campus. Most of them are small, skinny and pitch
black, and scare easily. I also discovered one of the coolest things about Grenada, almost all the soda comes in glass bottles, even out of
vending machines. The usual price was about 75 cents US for a .5 liter bottle. It seems the companies have stopped making them, but they're
able to keep it going by reusing the bottles.

This night was also my introduction to some of the subject matter of Al's courses, with which I would become remarkably
familiar over the next few days, considering my non-student status. The end of exams was not able to stop the students from bringing medical
terminology into normal conversation, and using it for some extremely nerdy humor. Al attempted to show me the cadavers he had been dissecting
for his anatomy class, but we only managed to catch a glimpse through a window, and they were wrapped up in their body bags. He showed me
pictures later, and most of them weren't too unpleasant, because they had been thoroughly dissected and looked more like meat than a person.
However the descriptions of some of his assignments, such as extracting the spine or cutting the face in half...I don't think I could ever do
that.

And now that I've given you all nightmares, I'll turn in and end the story of Day 1.

The next several entries will talk about my trip to Grenada, but first there are some other things to talk about. One,
I just got a new Raymond Smullyan book, in fact the most recent one he wrote, published at the beginning of this year. It's called "Who Knows:
A Study of Religious Consciousness." It talks about lots of the usual philosophical problems in this area, what might God be like, does the
doctrine of Hell make sense, and such, but after a few pages I can tell it's going to be great. Rather than get really intellectual and
analytic about things, Smullyan is more imaginative. I think he does have some new ideas to bring to the table, but he doesn't focus on that
like some academic paper. I wonder sometimes how many other people know about him. My stepbrother, a philosophy professor, introduced me to
him, and Douglas Hofstadter clearly admires him, and that seems to be about it. I just about never see his books in stores. I know he has a
following though, otherwise his books wouldn't sell on eBay for occasionally exorbitant prices. I'm getting sidetracked though.

Though I've been busy, lately I've had a lot more time to do philosophical thinking. If there's any field I make a
real contribution to, well music or computer science would be nice, but philosophy would be really cool. Like Smullyan I don't want to get
bogged down in academics and obscure theories--what I'd like to do is imagine worlds and write dialogues, as thought experiments. So look for
my first attempts here.

Finally, I was thinking about puzzles. A while ago I wrote about Smullyan's book the Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes,
and how, difficult as the puzzles were to solve, they must have been much more difficult to construct. Today I thought about that again, and
about how there are some puzzles that are easier to make than to solve, for example, word searches, and some that are harder to make, such as
crosswords. I guess most good puzzles tend to fall into the latter category, but it is interesting that the two exist, and that often the
construction of puzzles becomes a real art in itself. The retrograde analysis chess problems in Smullyan's book were a great example of this,
they were really things of beauty. In each one, at first glance the position looks normal or only slightly unusual, and the problem, ranging
from "who moved last and what was the last move?" to "have any pieces been promoted in this game?" seems absolutely insurmountable. It could
be anything! But gradually you realize that it couldn't be anything, but only one thing, and that every piece on the board is part of the
delicate balance that narrows down the possibilities.

On the 2nd day, after a goodly sleep, Al and I set out on a free university bus into the "town" near the campus, which
is the town of Grand Anse beach, the biggest beach on the island and somehow connected to the college. We ate at Rick's, an interesting
place where you sort of do some of the work for them, in that you get two slips of paper along with your receipt, you have to take one across the
cafe and give it to the cooks to tell them what food to make for you, and the other one down the counter to the drink station, to get that. The
food slip says at the bottom "You are so nice!" and something else. Al remarked he had always wanted to keep one for the Engrish-like quality,
but that would mean paying for food and never getting it.

We then decided to walk on the road to St. George's, the capital city, and see
if somewhere we could get access to the beach. We never did , but along the way, we saw lots of very ramshackle houses with animals
like goats, roosters, dogs, and such hanging around, and a Catholic School. We also got honked at by every commercial vehicle that passed us,
offering us their services. We ended up walking all the way to St. George's, which wasn't all that far but seemed like it. When we got there the
place seemed pretty dead to me--there was only one street with commerce on it, and that was the street next to the water. I wanted to sit in a cafe
and watch the cricket match that much of Grenada seemed glued to their TVs for. I picked about the worst one--no game on, no beverages, it looked
like food had never been served there. Al got an orange juice, which like all the other orange juice in Grenada, tasted like grapefruit juice to
me.

That night we went to a party for the students celebrating the end of the school year. It was $10 US to get in, and then
all you can drink, the drink selection consisting of vodka, rum, pepsi, beer, and the Jamaican grapefruit soda called Ting (and any mixture
thereof). It was fairly typical of parties, but kind of better--most of the people were a lot calmer than at the bar or college party scene that
I am familiar with in an extremely limited way. I met several more of Al's friends, and had some decent conversations. The location was a
cafe/bar that's basically on the beach, so Al and I decided to go out onto the beach area. There we met THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC TCBY EMPLOYEE IN
THE WORLD. He grabbed Al and started talking to him about the TCBY where we works, which other than KFC seems to be the only American food chain
to have made it there. It's also the "hangout" for a lot of the med students, which they laugh at themselves a bit for. This guy was so
enthusiastic about the economics of TCBY, how great it is, plans for expansion, that it was hard to believe he was just a cashier/server guy.
People at that leve here are generally so apathetic, and not without reason. He was shocked that I had never been to TCBY until I explained my
very recent arrival. A conversation about drinks ensued, culminating with his friend producing a drink seemingly out of nowhere. Now generally
it's ill-advised to take a drink under those circumstances, but in this case, date rape didn't seem too likely. They explained that it was Vodka
and Ting, and as soon as I started drinking it they were talking me out of it--"Don't drink it if you don't want to man, it's a fucked up drink."
I could understand why, because I really couldn't taste the alcohol, and people say that about a lot of drinks but I rarely find it that way
myself. Also I later remembered grapefruit can amplify the effects of things like alcohol. But this didn't do anything too bad to me.

Once the student bartenders were so drunk it was hard to get their attention, we took the bus back to the campus, and with
the combination of a bumpy ride, and some passengers looking really unhealthy, I felt sure there would be some vomiting, which would be really
unpleasant for at least a few people, since they pack the buses so tight. But somehow it didn't happen. As we started walking to the dorm I saw a
girl about our age pick up what appeared to be a dead rat off the road, and throw it into the grass. Now that is something you don't see every day.
"Vet students," Al's friend remarked--see the Medical students, they don't respect the Veterinary students too much. No regard. No esteem
either.

Before I talk about the next day of the trip, I want to say something about measurements. This occurred to me first
in thinking about measuring the circumference (if that can be used for non-circles) of island nations. It seems like this measurement could
be quite variable depending on the detail at which it is taken. If you're looking at a map that covers a large area, and you tried to measure
it from that, you'd be on the low end, because there are all sorts of little irregularities in there that aren't on the map. The same is true
to a smaller degree on a larger map just of that island, it includes a lot more of the smaller inlets and protrusions. What if you went further,
down to the level of tiny little protrusions, rocky areas or beach areas that are just big enough to add maybe 100 or 200 feet to the perimeter.
At this level the measurement will go up again, but by a larger or smaller amount than the first transition from smaller map to bigger map?
Probably smaller, but then again, it's kind of hard to say. Then we could go even further, to irregularities of just a few feet--now we're
not adding much to the measurement, but then again there are a whole lot of these little things. Then even further down, to tiny little areas,
and further, down to the perimeter going around the shape of a few grains of sand, to one grain of sand, going down the shape of each molecule,
and down to each atom. Of course it gets a bit silly down at that scale, since you've got tides going in and out, but still, it's fun to imagine
a measurement getting that crazy. I guess the increase in the measurement as the detail increases, would slow down and look like an asymptotic
function, but not truly asymptotic, because there's no one number that it could never reach.

Lastly, I have finally started up again my project for a dictionary of obscure, rare and arcane words. I have to finish
it before july, which is when I think I'll lose my access the online OED. Tonight I was able to make pretty good progress and finish the letter
F. I've gone through 9000 of the 27,425 words in the search query that I'm using, and selected about 600 of them for inclusion in my dictionary.
I think if I keep going at a steady pace now, I should be able to finish it.

On this day we took it easy, because we got up pretty late due to the party. We went to Grand Anse beach and pretended to
swim. We saw a lot of sand crabs. They were never far from their holes in the beach--as soon as I saw one, my next step would send him down into
the hole in a flash. I tried to look further ahead of where I was so I could get better looks, but this didn't work all that well. Their
camouflage was pretty good. The beach didn't have many good shells, or any sizable waves for that matter, which I suppose can be attributed to its
position on the west side of the island, not getting anything directly from the Atlantic. I got a picture of the sunset, which was the first
picture I had taken since just about 12 hours earlier, of the sunrise. That night we ate at the Sugar Shack, walked around some more, and watched
more episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force that we had been downloading. By this point I knew the theme song lyrics pretty well.

This day is a lot more interesting. We had a mission: to climb Mt. Qua Qua, in Grand Etang National Park. The main
obstacle, other than the climb, was getting there with Grenada's very ad hoc transportation system. Al, Faisal and I set out reasonably early,
taking a University bus into Grand Anse, and then a reggae bus to downtown St. George's. Now we realized why the city had looked so dead two days
ago: we had never gone through the Sendall Tunnel into the real city! This was a real city. The challenge before us was to find a reggae bus to
take us to Grand Etang. We feared not a lot of locals would be going there. Of course in Grenada you don't find the bus, the bus finds you. In
this case, a guy who was just standing against a building suddenly asked us where we wanted to go. When we told him, he said, "that's gonna be a
problem. The road that goes there, it's blocked off [or something], so you gotta... [something] Vendome, and you walk, a long way, uphill. Or
maybe you could find a cab to take you, for about $50 EC [$18 US]." Paranoia kicked in, but he wasn't trying to sell us a cab, he just kept saying
"go to the market" and "Vendome." So we went to the market, but we didn't know what the hell Vendome was, so we told a bus guy our destination,
and he said "Oh boy." and then pretty much said what the other guy had said, and to get into the bus which, coincidentally, he was about to get in
and be the conductor for.

That bus took us to what turned out to be the town of Vendome, closest to Grand Etang. The conductor pointed us to the road
we then had to walk. It didn't look blocked off to us, but then again it was somewhat understandable why they wouldn't want to take us a long way,
all uphill, for our lousy $3 EC (75 cents US, a deal I still can't believe). We stopped at the general store for some sustenance snacks--amazingly,
though this looked like a pretty small town, the food was still mostly American junk food sorts of items. I got some cookies that ended up being
about as tasty as Cookie Crisp cereal (i.e., not tasty).

The guy in St. George's was not kidding about the walk to Grand Etang, it was arduous as fuck. The road was paved and that
made the walking easy, but it was the steepest road I've ever seen. We got about 2/3 of the way up (though we didn't know that at the time) before
a car finally made an appearance, and the driver told us to get in and drove us the rest of the way. He asked $10 EC of each of us, and this was
almost the only time I felt ripped off in Grenada, but considering how nice it was not to have walked the rest of the way, I really didn't care.
He told us we had to pay an entry fee at a booth, but typically, there was no one there. As we walked to the trail head, we saw some locals eating
lunch, and they said "hey guys!" and gave a big thumbs up, while apparently snickering to themselves. This was understandable, as I was wearing
khakis and Faisal had on all black including Jnco jeans, but still, we'd show them.

I found the climb very pleasant. It mainly went along ridges, so the views were fantastic most of the way. The trail was
often narrow, with very steep drops on boths sides, but with a rainforest canopy of plant life rising out of it. The plant life turned out to be
almost more interesting than the animals--bamboo trees, gigantic leaves, actual tarzan-like vines. The only animals we really saw were hummingbirds
and little lizards, the rest were too fast and clever to be seen by the likes of us, though we sometimes heard their scurrying. The trail got
pretty steep and muddy (red clay-like mud) at some points, and this created some problems for Faisal, but we all made it up, and were rewarded with
more views, and the experience of watching clouds blow up the side of the mountain and right through us. On the way down Faisal ended up sliding a
lot, so he was pretty much covered with mud at the end of it. Not wanting to pay our driver any more, we walked down the long steep road to
Vendome. Faisal had been exhausted by the 3.5 hour climb, and walked like the living dead down that road.

Al and I got to the town about 15 minutes before him, so we sat down in the 'town square' with sodas. We must have looked
pretty funny sitting in a town with no tourist draw, with mud on our pants and shoes, because the locals were giving us some weird looks. When
Faisal got there, covered in mud and stumbling, an old man sitting on some steps said "the war is over boy, the war is over!" All the locals
walking through the square erupted in laughter, causing the man to repeat his comment several more times. Al and I couldn't help but join in. Once
that settled down (the old man was still laughing), we waited for the bus, slightly worried their concern for mud-free upholstery would strand us.
But they didn't notice, and we got home for some showers and rest. That night we went for some TCBY, and I recognized one employee from the party
(not the most enthusiastic employee in the world) but he didn't recognize me. When Faisal ordered a banana split one of them surreptitiously ran
out and bought some bananas. Good guys.

I continue with the Grenada story, but now another story must be told. I call this tale "Night Societies and Number Riots:
The Case of the Incredibly Long Wait for Radiohead Tickets which Ended in Failure Due to Problems of Group Dynamics." I'm not keeping anyone in
suspense about the failure part, because that would just make it more depressing. But I shall finish the Grenada story first, because I'm not sure
about the story capacity of my brain, and while this story is fresh, the Grenada story is fading.