Today, in the traditional Church calendar, is the Feast of St. Nicholas. I might have completely forgotten about it, but

1. Our Music Director at St. Mary's focused on it for the devotions at the beginning of today's choir workshop, and
   
2. One of my old friends from Stanford posted about it today in her blog.
   

The Mount Calvary Monastery and Retreat House.

I went to a retreat there in my Stanford days, back in the '70's. That weekend greatly influenced how I understand the world.

Occasionally over the decades I have thought about visiting it again. I can't now.

I made another platelet donation at the Minneapolis Red Cross today, for the first time since May. They went back to the vein I have used for 35 years of blood donations (almost exactly--I first donated at Stanford in the summer of 1973) and were able to complete the procedure. In fact, I was able to donate two units. There was some trouble with ( Read more... )

A remark by the rector of our church, in this morning's sermon, reminded me of visit I made in 1973 to the house of the Order of the Holy Cross in Santa Barbara, California. There I met Fr. John Walsted, who is an icon painter. Our talks made a deep impression on me, which sustained me through the dark years when we were realizing the full extent ( Read more... )

A Virtual Slide Rule.

I have several real slide rules at home, and I still know how to use them. I could not afford an electronic calculator until 1976, when I got an HP-21.

Via Slashdot.

The latest strip of xkcd (thanks for mdlbear for pointing out that webcomic to me) reminded me of a graffito from my Stanford days:The trouble with William Shockley is that he thinks people can be color coded.
. I wonder if anybody other than mdlbear recalls what that was about.

( Read more... )