Day 5: Elements of Style

Rule: "Do not join independent clauses with a comma"

Rather one should join independent clauses with a comma and a conjunction, or preferably, with a semicolon for the sake of brevity. Additionally, one could correct the problem by replacing the comma with a period and break the sentence into two. We prefer, however, the former two, for the convey a greater sense of connection between the two ideas. Examples of correct usage include:

Joel is a strong defender; he always stops the ball.

Davis moved to Columbus, and the Texas weather moved with him.

It was Friday. Everyone wanted to get together.

An exception to the rule occurs when the sentence contains two short clauses of similar form. As in the common idiom:

"Here today, gone tomorrow."

As well as in Little Bunny Foo Foo's rewording

"Hare today, goon tomorrow

Day 4: Elements of Style

Rule: "Place a comma before a conjunction introducing an independent clause."

As in: Laine gave a calculus test, and her students all cried.

In a two part sentence, where the second member is introduced by and, for, or, nor, or while will require commas before the conjunction. If, however, the two clauses have the same subject, and the subject is only included once, then more discretion is required. In the case that the conjunction is but, a comma is often useful. While, in the case that the conjunction is and, a comma should be omitted if the ideas in the clauses are similar. As in:

Laine's students wanted to do well, but did not.

Laine's students did not study enough and failed the test.

A final subtlety occurs when the second clause of our compound sentence is preceded by a dependent clause or introductory phrase that would be typically set off by commas. Here no comma is needed after the conjunction. As in:

"The situation is perilous, but if we are prepared to act quickly, there is still one chance of escape."

Day 3: Elements of Style

"Enclose parenthetical expressions between commas."

As in: "The best way to see a country, unless you are pressed for time, is to travel on foot."

After starting with possessive forms and serial punctuation, two sections well within common knowledge, this section presents the subtlety and detail I expect when I hear the name "The Elements of Style." The case of parenthetical expressions creates difficulty due to the rules of application. Two similar sounding phrases might have opposite punctuation. For example:

My eldest cousin, Matthew, works for PircewaterhouseCoopers.

My aunt Kat has a beautiful daughter.

Although the two sentences sound similar, the name Matthew gets set apart because it adds no new information. I have only one eldest cousin. In the second case Kat is not separated since it is necessary to specify which of my aunts I mean. In general a nonrestrictive clause like Matthew should be set apart, and a restrictive clause like Kat should not. A good rule of thumb to determine if a phrase should be set apart is to try to form two sentences from the sentence in question. The first splits nicely, and the second does not.

My eldest cousin is named Matthew. He works for PircewaterhouseCoopers.

My aunt is named Kat. She has a beautiful daughter.

In no cases, however, should one comma be applied without the other. In addition parenthetical expressions should be used with dates and titles, and when one uses a name or title as a direct address.

Magic: Real or just an Illusion

Today the Orlando Magic pulled off two block buster deals. They traded Rashard Lewis to the Washington Wizzards, and received Gilbert Arenas. They also traded Marcin Gortat, Vince Carter, and Mickael Pietrus along with a future draft pick and cash consideration to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson, and Earl Clark.

From the perspective of an Orlando Magic fan, I have no doubt behind the GM Otis Smith motivations (Although I would have preferred Smith bring in Carmelo or at least traded away Jason Williams. I will never forgive him for letting Rando humiliate him last year) . We all watched Orlando crash and burn last year against the Celtics. Orlando had the home court advantage and yet lost the first two games. They lacked consistency and could not score. By letting Perkins go one on one with Howard, the Orlando offense could not create shots. Nelson got into the paint some, but Lewis and Carter struggled to find their game with out the double teams on Howard.

Orlando had a very talented team before the trade (what team with Dwight Howard wouldn't be?), but they were never going to be as good as the Celtics or Lakers. With Miami rising they might not have even made the conference championship. But did the trade really give them the necessary bump?

With the trade Orlando gained a scorer in Richardson, a past all-star with something to prove in Arenas, and a play maker in Turkoglu. They also shed Carter and Lewis who both had trouble creating their own shot and both were having worse seasons this year compared to last. Turkoglu helped take the Magic to the finals in 2008 and Richardson helped lead his team on an improbable playoff run last season. The players brought in average 11.3 more points per game and improve the talent of the Magic starting five.

My gut tells me that the move will work to some degree. Arenas, eager to shed his image as a borderline criminal, will play with new found energy. Turkoglu, who has been unable to find his rhythm with different clubs will settle into his old roll with the Magic, and Richardson will provide the true scorer the Magic lacked. I cannot wait to see an all Florida Playoff series.

Quarter in Review

As you probably know this last August I moved up to Columbus Ohio. I left behind the best of friends, the familiarity of Rice, and the comfort of having your parents only 2 hours away (I don't know how they have time to do their jobs and be as good to me as they are). The move meant change and more change than the landscape or the climate. Although I do think of Jack London's "To Build a Fire" every morning when I walk to school.

The past few months I started cooking for my self and teaching first year calculus. Each had their share of ups and downs.

About mid October I had tired of the few meals I knew how to cook and frozen Pizzas. I wanted something new and different. So I set out to make cheese quesadillas. Being completely inexperienced in pan frying tortillas, I called my mother for guidance, but even she could not prevent the mess that followed. To cut it short, cheese + oil + tortilla + inexperienced cook= big mess. If any one out there has a good tip for getting burnt oil off my pans I would really appreciate it. They are still dirty.

Winning the award for biggest teaching goof of the quarter came in the fifth week of classes. Often when teaching math, the teacher takes the liberty of shortening words or phrases to save time. Continuous becomes cont and measurable becomes mble. "Without Loss of Generality" becomes WLOG and "The Following Are Equal" becomes TFAE. These short cuts liberate the students from burdensome words that hinder the flow of ideas, but sometimes they create the wrong idea. As was the case when I tried to shorten "Want To Find." Fortunately no one took offense.

The quarter of teaching held also brought many successes, and perhaps the best of which came in the form of terrific students. I had quite a few, but the best by far was a first year girl in my 4:30 class. She made my classes so enjoyable. What I would not give to have 10 students like her. Every class she came presented me with 2-3 difficult problems that she wanted to know the answer to. I'm thinking of doing a second post to just present to you all the neat problems she asked me. Among the best she posed was "why does the derivative of arcsec(x) change when you used a different definition of arcsec(x) (An explanation here)?" For a first year to ask such a question blew my mind. I thank her so much for being my student.

Thank you to Beth for helping me out with my question about snow. I feel better prepared already.

Misting snow

The weather turned here in Columbus last night. I woke to find that it had snowed in the night (only my 3rd ever sighting of snow) and it continued to snow all day. However, it never precipitated very hard, which begs the question what is the definition of snow? And if what I was seeing was not snow, then what word should I use to refer to a light sprinkling of snow? For varying intensities of rain you can have a drizzle, a flood, a down pour, a shower, a thunderstorm, a deluge or a sprinkle, and all describe a very different kind of rain. In Texas it never snowed enough to necessitate more than one word for snow. If there are words for varying degrees of snow I would be glad to hear. Until then I think I'll just say it misted snow today.

Mirror Lake, Bigger than Beer Bike?

Four years of Beer Bike at Rice taught me that college tradition spurred students into actions that the rest of the world viewed as crazy or absurd.  Each March hundreds of students fly around the track at speeds that threaten to send them into the stands. Last year one student took a turn too fast and drove right into the alumni tent, and another clipped another girl's wheel and sent her tumbling. The race inspired cheers and speeches. As Tyson Heller would say "Beer Bike could bring you unparalleled glory, or it could rip your heart out and leave you bleeding." A little extreme, yes, but that is Beer Bike. For more details including WRC's 2009 sweep check out Jen Cooper's site.

I thought I had seen it all when it came to college tradition, but last week I saw OSU's own version of tradition, Mirror Lake Jump. Walking back from the math department late Tuesday night, I noticed that more drunk college students stumbling around than usual. As I continued walking I noticed that all the students wore practically nothing. Girl donned tank tops and guys went shirtless. I got a hold of one stumbling sophomore, and ask him "Why so many students would run around half naked on such a cold night (it was 27 degrees)?" He only yelled an insult directed at Michigan and ran away.

The students gathered to make a sacrifice to the sporting gods. Each year since 1990 about 12,000 undergraduate students at OSU jump into Mirror Lake in hopes that their action will lead OSU to victory over rivals Michigan. The event approaches riot like proportions. Three times I saw groups of girls dragging a friend to force her participation. I saw a drunk guy sprint into a chain fence. I saw thousand of students in freezing water chanting "USA, USA, USA" (Why they weren't chanting OSU I don't know.).  I learned some new songs appropriate if I ever want to insult someone from Michigan. There were even police on horseback equipped with riot gear in case things got out of hand (They weren't already?).

The event awed me. Never had I seen so many people in one place act with so much mindless energy.  Mirror Lake jump certainly beat Beer Bike in terms of participation, but it could not compare with the glory and passion that Beer Bike inspires. For Beer Bike, participants train for months and spectators engineer a water balloon battle prior to the race with thousands of rounds of ammo of water. For Mirror Lake, participants simply get drunk and jump in a pond. No fair comparison can be made. Mirror Lake bigger Yes, but better No Way.

Next Stop, o-HI-o

Davis packed it up on Friday. Some people pack conventionally. Some people don't. Davis was a careful blend of the two. He had new kitchenware in its original boxes. He did not discard the boxes and strap the pots and pans to the outside of his car or wherever they would fit. He did, however, open the boxes, remove most of the packaging, and put as many other, loose items as he could fit into the resulting empty spaces.

He also fit the card table into the trunk first thing rather than tie-ing it to the roof. Then he proceeded to fold his clothes into the shapes of the various empty spots and gaps in the underside of the table: some rectangular, some triangular. The packing continued like that from the bottom up. Eventually, he fit:

• a card table,
• four chairs,
• his high-backed desk chair,
• a ten-piece cookware set,
• dishes,
• glassware,
• utensils,
• soccer and bike gear,
• chess set,
• computer,
• printer,
• rice cooker,
• dozens of books,
• all his clothes,
• two sets of bedding and four pillows,
• a three-shelf bookcase,
• a 48 x 20 folding work table, and
• a package of school clothes and other cool items for Emma when he stopped in to visit her and my sister on his way through Dallas

into his Honda Accord. And he did it well enough that it passed the Walter Visibility Test, where Walter sat in the driver's seat and made sure he could see out all three mirrors, all the side windows, and the front and back windows clearly and with no obstruction.

I took pictures:

And you can see from this last picture, he actually has a tad more room for some special shaped item under his helmet and next to his clock. Unfortunately, there was nothing left to pack.

Davis made it to Columbus this afternoon, safe and sound.

There and Back and There Again

Next week we head for Ruidoso, New Mexico to visit friends and family. This will culminate a summer of travel for Davis: the Epic Road Trip through the southwest, the World Cup extravaganza to South Africa, and the Institute for Advanced Studies summer program in Park City, Utah. By mid-August he will entrench himself at Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio, preparing to buckle down on some heavy-duty studying and problem-solving.

I look at my son and am amazed by his string of accomplishments. I'm not talking about his academic success, though there have been plenty of those. I'm wowed by this young man. He attended school in the same district K through 12. We traveled a little, mainly car trips, mainly to New Mexico, with one tour through the South and one trip all the way to California. We did fly to Wyoming for Erin's Make-A-Wish trip, and we went with Davis and the Science Bowl team to Washington, D.C. when they qualified for nationals. He lived in Nashville for a few years as a toddler and pre-schooler. When he finally left home, he moved 90 miles away to Houston for college. All pretty prosaic. Not much adventure, not much reason to believe he was any different than any other small town kid who would get used to the place he was born and raised and choose to stick around there.

Except.

Except that Davis, the boy who ordered the same meal from Gina's every week for years, the youth who loved routine, the teen who never even asked to take a roadtrip with his buddies, has embraced the world. He made a wikimap of all the places he has made extended stays:



The true confessor in me says that there is no way, no how, I could have pulled those various adventures off as a young adult. Move to Hungary, live in an apartment, brave the market so I could make my meals? Uh uh. Pull off research jobs in upstate New York and downtown Pittsburgh? Wouldn't be brave enough to apply or talented enough to get hired. Live with 13 other people in a townhouse in DC? You must be kidding!

This way Davis can just pick up his life and move it somewhere else, and then turn back around and fit back into the routines of our home astounds me. Here is the project we have worked on between his various trips this summer. We finished last night, three-thousand pieces of devilment and delight:

Davis's South African Pics

Davis took most of our South Africa trip photos and has started a Facebook album (we are still adding comments so you know what you are looking at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087701&id=3006850&saved

Epic Graduation Road Trip

What more can I say about the Epic Graduation Road Trip that this photo doesn't say? (Click on photo for musculature detail.)


Summit of the Guadalupe Mountain, highest point in Texas.

Dinner for Four

Frankly, it doesn't do the clean, folded clothes much good to pack the dirty laundry right on top of (or perhaps even intermingled with) them for the ride home from college.

Ordinarily, Davis handles his own laundry chores, but considering his return from the epic road trip (I feel like that should be in bold and all caps and perhaps even a cinemagraphic font choice) is not anticipated for more than two more weeks, I thought I might take a go at it to avoid having my house reek from the college stench that was already permeating his bedroom.

I started sorting out piles from the three large collection of linens, towels, workout clothes, and other apparel items and decided that I wasn't going to feel guilty about using more than my share of the planet's water today.

I rescued belts and caps from their watery deaths.

I put like with like and didn't pause long to consider where he got all those light blue/gray athletic socks.

I finally reached the bottom of the final basket, only revising my estimate of how many people I was doing laundry for twice--I decided it was either a family of six or the Lads (Rice's club soccer team). I found a piece of paper, folded twice, like you would put in an envelop to mail. The part that faced up had a question typed:

"3. WHAT THREE PEOPLE, REAL OR FICTIONAL, WOULD YOU HAVE OVER FOR DINNER AND WHY?"

and an answer written in ink in Davis's cramped style:

"Jon Stewart--funny
Donna Smith--good politics"

and

"My mother--she would like to meet Jon"

I was immediately gratified that the final bit didn't say "My mother--she should at least get to eat if she has to cook the meal."

Then I started to wonder what it was. I didn't really want to snoop, but . . .

I opened the paper all the way and discovered it was The Official Rice Roommate Information Sheet that Davis had filled out just about this time of year in 2006.

Other revealing questions

Will you have. . .

a car--no
a computer--yes
a vcr--no
a tv--no
a dvd player--no
a refrigerator--no
an iron--no
a phone--no
a stereo--yes

Q6 IF YOU COULD HAVE A ROMANTIC OR TORRID RELATIONSHIP WITH ANYONE, REAL OR FICTIONAL, MODERN OR HISTORIC, WITH WHOM WOULD IT BE AND WHY?

completely blank

As I looked over that piece of paper and had three questions:

1. Why they would ask an incoming freshman about his torrid dream relationship?
2. Why in the world would Davis have that ancient form at the bottom of his laundry basket (and had it been there for four years)?
3. Would I still make the cut for dinner for four (and would Jon Stewart have a good time)?

Grad

Graduation Announcements

If you thought you hadn't received your graduation announcement from Davis because he was spending all his time hard at work, shutting down his undergraduate years and preparing for the future, like this photo illustrates:


You would be wrong!

Perhaps you think the four A's and one A+ this semester didn't quite push him over the hump to meet graduation requirements.

Again, you would be wrong!

Fines? Parking tickets? Overdue library books?

Nope!

Balfour misprinting the announcements:

"Graduating with a BA in Liberal Arts and a minor in Mathematics"

Yep. That happened. But we caught the mistake, called expeditiously, and re-ordered in a timely way. The new ones arrived with the right degree and major,


BUT,


the wrong graduate.


We are now waiting for a new batch.
Third times a charm.
Touch wood.
Rub a rabbit's foot.
Whatever.

It'll happen whether we announce it or not.

Senior Gala

Davis had to hit the road so quickly on Tuesday afternoon (see Quick In, Quick Out) so he could make it back in time for this photo op:


Because of the lack of details they shared when they sent the photos, I am left to assume that they either went to a fun evening of dancing and celebration or that they are CIA operatives.

Quick In, Quick Out

Davis popped in around 8:30 last night. I fed him, and we all watched the Spurs lose to the Suns. He woke up long enough to eat migas with us for breakfast that went back to bed until 11:45.

We grabbed lunch at Gina's, replaced his cell phone that got stepped on in his pocket when he went rock climbing, and got our South African immunizations: typhoid, tetanus, and hepatitis A (and B for me). He slipped back in his car and down the road, hoping to make it back to Houston in time to tidy up for the Senior Class Gala tonight.

The inevitable realization that moms have to make: something is better than nothing.

James Street Fulton Prize

Davis received the James Street Fulton Prize. The prize was established in 1981 by Mr. Edward Hinders, a distinguished alumnus of Will Rice College, class of 1971, in honor of the first master of Will Rice College. The James Street Fulton Prize is awarded to the Will Rice student who has distinguished himself or herself above all others in utilizing the educational opportunities of the University in the face of personal or financial hardship, and who has set an example of personal achievement and community service.

Here is one of the nomination letters written on his behalf:

To the members of Will Rice College:

I am nominating C. Davis Buenger for the James Fulton Street Prize because of his high level of academic achievement and commitment to the Will Rice College community while dealing with the illness and death of his sister.

On April 13th, 2009 over 900 people gathered at the First Presbyterian Church in Bryan, Texas to celebrate the life of Erin Channing Buenger. People came because they had lost a friend, a classmate, a teammate. They came because they had lost a fellow churchgoer, a fellow joke teller, a fellow animal lover, a fellow red-head. They came because in the words of Matthew Dahlgren: “Erin made everyone feel like they had a special connection with her.”

When Davis arrived at Rice his freshman year 9-year-old Erin had been battling relapsed Neuroblastoma, a pediatric cancer, for over a year. He threw himself into studying for Organic Chemistry and doing problem sets for Honors Calculus. Davis played almost every Will Rice sport. Davis made the Beer Bike team. Sophomore year Davis continued to take challenging classes and declared Mathematics as his major. He participated in math research through the VIGRE program. Without a position or a committee Davis contributed his creativity. He organized an art show, “The Restaurant La Phoenix”, and “Ceramic Rights.” His junior fall Davis studied abroad in Budapest, Hungary, and when he returned to Will Rice in the spring was instrumental in the preparation, spirit, and muscle of the Beer Bike Sweep. This year Davis received A’s in graduate level math classes, played club soccer with the Lads, volunteered his chess talent at a local elementary school, and led in position and spirit the Will Rice Bike team.

In between it all Davis has worried and thought about his parents and sister. When his parents and sister came down to Texas Children's Hospital for appointments he would meet up with them. He lives with the maturity that comes from realizing in ninth grade that you can’t complain to your parents about why they didn’t come to your soccer game when your five year old sister has cancer. He has spent his four years at college with the rare perspective that there are things that matter more than getting the best grades and having the best resume. He has lived with the crushing knowledge of his sister’s physical pains and his parents’ emotional burdens. He has woken up knowing that it is Erin smiling and talking and laughing that keeps them all going and woken up knowing that memories of her will have to do the same.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth S. Van Itallie

Davis's classmates were so moved by this story that the college president organized a voluntary collect from the students in the college and sent us $550 for the Children's Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation.

Uncanny

Davis is about to accept an offer for Ph.D. school in Mathematics. I'm not sure how Erin knew this, but here is the evidence: The only time we ever had matching team spirit shirts (we never had Aggie or Rice Owl shirts) was when our dear internet friend Angela Thomas (Christi's mom) sent us these:

From WELCOME TO ERIN'S HOME

If you can't read the script, both shirts say Ohio State Buckeyes.

All Set

We have tickets to all the USA pool matches in the World Cup. A place to stay, the entire time we are there (scheduled to open May 1. . . keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't run more than five weeks behind schedule). And as of Monday, reserved seats on a Boeing 777 leaving from Houston, headed towards Johannesburg.

Davis's graduation announcements arrived yesterday, lovingly tucked on the front porch by the UPS guy.

His degree audit is final.

I think we're set to become the parents of a college graduate and intercontinental travelers all in one swell foop.

Glimpses of Davis

I couldn't settle on a title for this post. I started to call it "Jedi Mind Trick" in honor of this first story I wanted to tell you:

"Jedi Mind Trick"

Soon after Walter and I arrived for Beer Bike on Palm Sunday, we went out to the track with Davis to check conditions.

Windy, but dry. Check.
Stacked hay bales on the dangerous corners for cushioning during crashes. Check.
Lanes chalked with spirit-filled slogans. Check.

We then headed up into Rice Stadium (not officially part of the course, but for years Will Race and Jones racers have watched the festivities and gotten ready for the race up on the second deck concourse overlooking the track). Uh oh. The gate was locked tight. We walked around to the gate on the far side of the stadium, found one open entrance, and let ourselves in. As we walked back around to the side overlooking the bike track, Davis strode ahead of us, leading the way. Within moments, an official looking electric cart with an official looking groundskeeper zipped up next to Davis. From a distance it looked like he was giving Davis "what for" and asking him to leave immediately.

Davis responded. I couldn't hear how the conversation went. I think it was something like this:



By the time we caught up to the cart, the groundskeeper's body language had changed and he said something like, "Your can go about your business." I might even have heard him say "Move along."

Or I might have called it:

"Two Hours."

I never want to imply to Davis that I need him to come home, but I do like to know when it's going to happen, especially now that he often brings EVI, so that I can change the linens before they arrive. When we saw them at Beer/Bike their plans were still up in the air: either they would come home together for Easter or Davis would come home alone the following weekend for his birthday (when EVI had an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Dallas).

I knew they had Maundy Thursday and Good Friday off from school and figured they'd choose Easter, but I didn't hear from them on Wednesday or Thursday. When Davis called on Friday afternoon, he didn't mention his travel plans at all. I didn't want to be pushy, so as the call drew to a close, I said, "Well, just give me a call whenever you are two hours away." He broke into hysterical peals of laughter, that I, frankly, didn't understand. "What? Why are you laughing," I responded, "I just want a little warning before you get here."

He said, "That's not what you said. You said, 'let me know when you are two hours away,' and I was just imagining the set of all the points I could be that I would be two hours away from you and how much trouble it would be to call every time I moved a step or two. In my room, two hours away. In class, two hours away. At the gym, two hours away."

I guess that's math humor.

The final option for a title would have been:

"The Natural"

My mom gave Davis his birthday presents early. One was some juggling balls and an instruction manual. Davis looked at the box and started to work out how to get through all the packaging to the balls. He said, "I heard somewhere that juggling is an innate talent. You can either naturally do it or you can't." Then he liberated the three balls and started juggling. He made about fifteen successful tosses before he stopped. I was holding a camera and was too stunned to catch a photo or even a little strip of video. He was as completely surprised as we were and refused to try again for the camera. Eventually, I put the camera away and cajoled him into trying again. He did better than EVI or I could on his second and third try, but it was clear that he was a novice, a novice with innate talent.

Proud Mom

Walter and I headed to Houston on Sunday to watch the Beer/Bike make up race. Heavy storms the week before pushed the race back a week and a day. Possibly because officials didn't want to create back-to-back imbibing weekends (I understand the fans wake up around 5:30 in the morning to get a jump start on alcohol consumption. Now that I know that I am doubly thankful that Davis is and always has been a rider and not a spectator) the race was downsized.

I forgot to take a camera (and binoculars), so all I have is a couple of fuzzy, up-close shots taken with my phone before the race ("cheerful Davis" and "pensive Davis"):



Unfortunately for Will Rice, after the race Davis had a lot more reasons to look like the second photo than the first. The team rode well, but had a hard time overcoming a couple of race day problems that popped up.

Why am I proud, despite the loss?

If you know Davis, you know that he can be very competitive. He really likes to play games and he really likes to win. When he was younger, he could be an unbearable winner and a sore loser.

After the race, Walter and I watched as he comforted his teammates, gave them encouragement, and congratulated the Will Rice women who had won their race. He walked from person to person, giving out hugs, shoulder squeezes, and at one point sat down cross-legged in front of one discouraged team member until he cajoled a smile out of him.

I knew all he wanted to do was go off by himself and try to forget about the loss.

But he didn't. He stayed and did all of his team captain duties. And if I were honest, I would tell you that most of the time he met the dejected looks of his team mates with a countenance that looked a lot like the first photo above.

Another Math Adventure

Davis heard yesterday that he got a fully-funded slot at the Institute of Advanced Studies' Park City Mathematics Institute in Park City, Utah this summer.  Now I don't need to worry how to keep him out of trouble and occupied when we get back from South Africa.  He will be studying Mathematical Image Processing and Compressed Sensing for several weeks.


View Larger Map

It amazes me the places math has taken Davis in the last two years:  Hungary, Pennsylvania, New York, California, and Utah, and usually on someone else's dime.  (Brooke, do you stay in Utah in the summer?)

We Eat All We Can

Davis and Evi are making final preparations for the 53rd annual Beer/Bike extravaganza.  

(Apparently, if I were a sufficiently supportive mom, at this point I would insert the following:  Will Rice Will Sweep, which is the tagline for Davis and Evi's team.  Last year Will Rice did, in fact, sweep all three races--men's, women's, and alumni!)

While they have honed their fitness, stamina, and biking technique over the past few months, they need that perfect edge to push them over the top.  That is why they sought inspiration from the oracle last week.

Locals will recognize this as the courtyard of the Blue Bell Ice Cream creamery in Brenham (Motto 1:  We eat all we can, and sell the rest.  Motto 2:  Making Texas Cows Proud).  

Now they can race with all the confidence that having a transformative life experience can endow.

2000 Steps

Davis and Evi started their Spring Break last Friday. Happily, they are using our house as their base of operations for Digging Deep into the Heart of Texas and Training for March's Beer/Bike Spectacular (their two designated Spring Break activities).

So I came home from Chess Club yesterday afternoon about 5:30 and found them dressed in workout clothes. I snagged Willie and Teddy for quick pre-sunset walk, expecting to find an empty house when I returned (on the presumption Davis and Evi were headed to the Rec Center).

Instead, I found the two of them running up and down the stairs. First Evi, up and down the ten steps to the landing, ten times in a row, in under a minute. Then, Davis, up and down, times ten, in a minute. With just one minute rest, Evi took her second turn. Then Davis. Back and forth. No rest in between. Until they had each gone up 1000 steps and back down. Like the eastern philosopher says, a journey of 1000 steps begins with the first step (and then is followed by 999 more steps!).

So here is another question:

Evi, Davis, Walter, and I have gotten in the habit of playing games as part of their visit home: cards, dominoes, charades, board games. This time they arrived with a game in mind, but without the game. They spent some time shopping around the Microplex on Saturday--Jacque's, WalMart, Target, Toys R Us--and could not find Settlers of Catan.


Actually, here is the question, finally: If you wanted to buy a game and couldn't find it in your city, what would you do?

If you were Davis and Evi, you would make it from scratch, which is what they did on Saturday evening and Sunday. They made the re-arrangeable hexagonal board. Built resource cards. Cut and painted wooden markers for the settlements, roads, and cities. Saturday we played with a rudimentary version of the game (pictured below), and by last night we had a pretty high quality version of this game.



Today they are on a road trip back to Houston. Thursday, I think they are touring the Blue Bell Ice Cream plant. Friday, they are joining Walter and I in Dallas. Besides those simple guideposts, I don't really know what else they will fit in. But nothing would surprise me.

Legos + Rubik's Cube = ?

Any of you who know Davis personally can attest to his great fondness for Legos. He had twelve birthdays in a row where Legos were the only thing on his gift list. The year he didn't ask for Lego's no one knew what to get him.

He also has an affinity for the Rubik's cube (Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik was part of the motivation for Davis choosing Budapest when he studied abroad). He has 3 X 3, 4 X 4, and 5 X 5 cubes and has been in the market for a racing cube for a number of years.

I don't know whether he has seen this, but it just screams DAVIS!