The days dwindle down

School starts real soon now. I'm thinking we'll probably do a newbie event on 9/8 or 9/9. Everything's so late I'd hate to lose a week. I'll confab with MF after the wedding, which I would imagine is concentrating her mind at the moment.

I've been marching the new topic through my brain on off hours. There is a 600-pound gorilla, which is that there is no worthy argument against abridging RTP when boarding a plane. I ask interested parties to consider this. I've got ideas, of course, not for arguing the above, but for the topic overall. I'll put them down shortly, but they stem from that gorilla. (If you think I'm wrong and you can argue the gorilla, remind me not to fly with you any time soon.)

It's been a bit of an old-home week. Had a lovely lunch with CLG and K2. Katie is on her way to Italy for a semester, which I hate her for. I want to go to Italy for a semester. I could study something. Food? It's a great thought. CLG has already signed up to judge Manchester and Harvard (and Bump, if she knows what's good for her). Also heard from the Nostrumite again. He's in a state of permanent depression over the Olympics. It's not so much the doping or bad judging (sounds like LD) or even the fact that every time he turns the TV on he has to look at Bob Costas. "There need to be more synchronized events," he says. He loved synchronized diving, and is a well-known collector of tapes of historical synchronized swimming competitions; he's never gotten over the end of MGM's run of Esther Williams movies, or so he claims. But why are all synchronized sports wet? "You could have synchronized everything," he says. "Synchronized shot putting, synchronized pole vaulting, synchronized marathon racing. For that matter, the running events could even be three-legged, like field day when you're a kid. A three-legged twenty-six mile race would be a real test of teamwork." Perhaps. My favorite field day event was always potato racing, which unfortunately is no longer an Olympic event. Synchronized potato races would be a real crowd pleaser, if you ask me.