Living the Bohemian experience abroad

That is, abroad from the point of view of Bohemia. I am actually in Berkeley, but I have my laptop with me and I am writing this in a coffee shop using the public wifi. I guess that counts as young and hip these days, although if I were truly young and hip I would have some fancy Macbook instead of stodgy old Vista. Mr. Philena is sitting across from me smiling at all the good news he's reading in the paper: the new budget is reversing income inequality (or trying), the ban on images of coffins returning to the US is being lifted, al-Marri is getting a trial after years of detainment, and a bill allowing federal financing of stem cell research is being introduced in the Senate. And that's just in today's paper. (Fun fact: in today's paper is also the headline: "Professor Allowed in Library." Oh, good, I'm glad to hear it.)

Hey! Did I mention that Mr. Philena and I took an anniversary trip? It was five years this February, so he took me down to Pacific Grove where we looked for monarchs. They flock in the thousands in December, and when he was there for a conference then he was overwhelmed by the trees blanketed in butterflies and wouldn't rest until he had gotten me down there to see them for myself. By February most of the monarchs were gone, but there were still a few there. As it turned out, Pt. Lobos was much more interesting, and we spent most of the day hiking the trails around there. Want to see pictures? Of course you do.

( Not-so-rugged outdoorsiness )