Gesunfternoon!

There are now only two days before Dad is taking me into the Hawkeye State, which nobody knows why it's called that. I haven't packed sufficiently yet; my next two days will be spent having some quality time with cardboard boxes. Actually, we're leaving Wednesday, and today's Monday. So I really have just one day left at the house. That startled me, just there, because I didn't realize it before. Tomorrow is the only day I have left for packing. Then it's off to Iowa, and of course subsequently to Wisconsin for that Outdoor Orientation, which I expect is going to be a bunch of fun. Then back to Iowa. This has been the most nomadic summer of my life, easily. Home, Crowduck, new home, Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa. And I assume I'll be having a fair number of visits home, too, increasing the nomaditude even further. I don't have a class schedule yet, inasmuch as I register for classes after I get to the college and get a chance to talk with my Advisor (Dr Savarese). But it looks like life is about to get a whole lot more interesting. In fact, it already has, but I mean more so. Here, let me explain: Finneytown, as we have seen in previous years of posting, has pretty much nothing going for it. It has the highest property taxes in Cincinnati, because there's no industry there to make the area profitable. As a zone, it's a consumer and not a producer. The best thing as far as natural attractions go is Warder Park, which I've learned over the years to make do with, but which, for all the rhapsodizing I've done over its beauty, is still only beautiful by comparison, and overall not that great a place as far as wilderness is concerned. It's a diseased area, but less so than the area around it, is my feeling about it. Now, life has gotten more interesting because I'm now living in Wyoming, Ohio, which first off is new to me. I spent my first few days biking around and getting acquainted with what the place had to offer. One critical thing in that category is a railroad. I've never lived within casual traveling distance of a railroad before, and I have to say it's pretty keen to be able to bike to the tracks and wait no more than half an hour before seeing a train go by. The other day I watched one at night, which I'd never done before. I didn't know train lights pulsed like that. It was like watching a UFO coming from behind the trees around the bend in the track. Trains are also deliriously loud right up close. Besides trains, Wyoming is also at least ten times nicer than Finneytown as a neighborhood, and it doesn't hurt that we're now living in a much larger house that finally has room for all our crap, Thoreauvianisms aside. It's famed for its trees. Everything is so well kept. Since we live right on the border, I can ride right into Hartwell and watch the instant decrepitation of the road and sidewalk under me as it passes into Hartwell's jurisdiction for maintenance. Everything instantly becomes seedier and crappier. It's actually kind of unnerving if you think about it too closely. So I like to stay in Wyoming, though I must confess that it doesn't have the breadth of restaurant selection that Finneytown has - just some expensive places, and a few places over the border in Hartwell. I have yet to go exploring any woods thoroughly, because I've been so busy right here at home and because it's been so butt-sweatingly hot outside. So I guess I'll save that for my first trip back home.
-Micah's going into 9th grade, for reasons that elude me. The Wyoming School district, which I guess should know a thing or two about these kinds of things since it's been rated as high as 12th in the nation for public schools according to Mom, decided that he should just move into high school. He, Dad, and I were at Gold Star the other day, and I told him he now had to be careful for Carnegie Units. Dad concurred and told him, "If you get bad grades in high school, when you graduate you might as well look for a recruiter. But if you get good grades, we might be inclined to fund some of a college education for you." I guess now we just see if Micah takes the point. He also seriously needs to start making better friends. He has a consistent record of picking up the lowest bottom feeders: Brian, Matt, Josh, Dustin. These are kids who have no future. Kids who no one else will tolerate, but who Micah, thinking he's a misfit and can't do any betterthan them, latches onto. They've depressed me for years.
-So now life is about to get a whole lot more interesting again, as I go off and start what they usually call a New Chapter in My Life Story. One thing's for sure, there'll be more entertainment (the administration, I'm informed, has noted that Grinnell is an isolated town in Iowa, and thus provides all sorts of fun stuff to do), and more opportunity for interesting friendships. Perhaps I can finally find a girlfriend. There will also still be trains, though I understand they only come by about twice a day on the track that runs directly through campus. Rather than speculate, I'll get more information to you once stuff starts happening. All indications point to fun.

Now let's have an abrupt change of gear from this happy-go-luckiness. I don't remember what I was searching for when I found Anthropik.com. But I've since kept going back there time after time. The spearheader here is Jason Godesky, and his critical work is The Thirty Theses, a rough draft that he's put up online for a book he intends to create, so that he can get comments and corrections and generally a vigorous if informal peer editing process before making it a final draft. If he's correct in the points he's making, then the theses are most likely the most important thing you'll ever read. I can't say whether he's ultimately right or wrong yet, because I haven't finished yet, and because I don't have the history background to ask the right questions. However, BJ, the man who got a 5 on the AP History Exam with a half hour's studying and at one time at least told me you were majoring in international relations, I want to know what you think of them. I don't know what kind of time you have, but I exhort you to at least read a little bit about the site and the first few theses. I want to know if Jason Godesky is reasonable here, because, as you'll agree if you read it, this is significant, and very few things are more significant if it's right. I'd be more specific here, but I'd sound like a possibly deluded alarmist, and there'd be a possibility no one would go there, or they wouldn't take him very seriously.