1:23 a.m. Saturday...
flipping the log with a title suitable for tomorrow's text...

11:45 a.m.
about this time, Tom Fletcher and his family are probably midway to Ventura County, somewhere down I-5 past the mid-point, Coalinga/Huron. he told me the other day that the airconditioning unit in their van broke down, so, it's gonna be a hot ride for all in that car. i suggested he bring one of those small, battery-powered fans, just in case. but in all likelihood there won't be a single cubic centimetre of space left inside the vehicle, after they pack in all of his boxes of stuff. and, since the whole family is going (mom, dad, 2 siblings), it's gonna be a squeeze and a half!

that picture above (a scan from a slide i took) is about how the Central Valley looks in summer... i remember riding/driving down I-5 to go visit Angel, or Frankie or Mikey in Huron, and feeling like i was dreaming or something. the heat pressing on my brain somehow made the dry hills and prairies be more lushly golden, the sky more piercingly blue. (the image, btw, links to one of Angel's first web pages, which he did years ago. the whole poem begins here, however.)

well anyway, Tom is on his way to Pasadena, and to the next four (at least) years of scientific and academic excitement at Caltech. i lent him my old Olympus digital camera, so we can expect to see pix of him and his new life down there as a freshman at one of the elite science and technology schools in the world. i was quite touched by what he had to write about our friendship and hope you all got to read it, as it pretty much describes (from the mentee's point of view, of course) what i really do these days.

i find this interesting on several counts. first of all, i'm a rat (Chinese zodiac) and so, apparently, are a number of you 'regulars.' (Spark and Kass for two.) but more fascinating is the idea of Trev's role-playing here. on one level, he said it would be interesting to chronicle the rats' lives as they go along... see how their 'personalities' (rationalities? hehe) develop over time; on another level, though, as i pointed out to him, it would be interesting for me to see his personality as filtered through the lens of a rat. beyond mere role-playing, i think it's quite possible to project a sense of yourself onto your pet, and in this case, he reflects it right back, via their weblogs. so, it should be fascinating to watch. hopefully, Trev will get enough time during his coming sophomore year at Lowell to update his ratlogs now and then. (he claimed he'd be able to do it weekly. we shall see.) btw, i'm privileged to be considered a 'rat sibling' on their weblogs, hee-hee. only on Bean's so far, but Trev's not quite done yet with 'em.

{ net.casting }
^