We have a dog. Her name is Patches. Most of the time I think she is AD/HD. Of course puppies are like that. She is entertaining at times. She hauls her bed and all her toys around the house. Sometimes she piles everything up and sleeps on it. Mostly she spreads them all over the house. She has learned a few tricks: to sit, stay (sometimes), walk well on her leash, to lie down. We are working on play dead and high 5.

The concert went extremely well the other night. We had a large enthusiastic audience of more than 300. There were many prospects for the choir for next year. I also have picked up a few voice students since then. The program went well from beginning to end and audience members were moved to tremendous ovations--more applause than I have ever seen for one of my concerts. It seemed that everyone stayed for the reception that followed. It was a grand evening.

It seems that the preznit is taking the position that regardless of the last election and the polling data that shows lack of support for his positions, he will just continue on his merry way with his band of incompetents, refusing congressional subpoenas, stonewalling investigations, protecting his appointees in the face of clear evidence of unethical if not illegal activities, confident that he'll not be impeached and convicted, which is apparently the only thing that might bend his will. Did you think it was irony to hear his office say that President Carter has become irrelevant? Whoa! Actually, worst in history, most damaging policies ever--that is not irrelevant. W. will go down in history, and I do mean down. Hopefully he takes a generation of the GOP with him.

Did you see the NOVA on the robot cars? In this competition they drove over a rugged desert course for hours, negotiating hairpin turns, going through gates, passing other vehicles and obstacles. The winner was named Stanley (from Stanford) and averaged 19 miles an hour. A second vehicle was only slightly behind and 5 of the 20 actually finished the course. The military's entry came in 5th but finished. It was quite a complicated set of programs that allowed it to work, but it makes you think that cars that drive themself are indeed possible. The only bad thing was that when they had a problem, like the 15 that did not finish, they tended to lurch suddenly off course and into a ditch or something worse. The winner used a combination of a video camera and lasers to look at the road. The idea worked.

One of my student's parents gave me the biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson yesterday. A very nice gift, don't you think?