After returning from a chilled out week in Maine (Port Clyde and Acadia), then a week or so in our Toronto home, we returned to a rapidly dying pussycat. He was not noticeably sick before leaving June 1st, he was still catching and eating chipmunks, but by the 17th was hurting and edemic. Axel has been a constant, delightful companion for 13 years, since inheriting him from Steve Price at Keenan Body Shop, the shop that turned out the 914/6 Monterey, in 1993, that’s now for sale. Axel was a shop cat, and imprinted on the cars as much as he did the others pets Steve kept around the shop grounds. He always loved cars, just like Axel in the Fletcher Hurd book Steve’s son Robbie gave us almost 10 years ago (Axel, The Freeway Cat). Axel Enzo was a car cat. He sampled the ferrous compounds from nearly every …
A Tail of Two Cities
I’ve just returned from 2 conferences back-t0-back (I don’t recommend it), and the difference between the two venues is almost unthinkable. First Bowling Green, Ohio for the Nexus for Change – followed immediately by the Information Architecture Summit in Las Vegas. Even though the 2 conferences also hosted two very different crowds, one other colleague attended both, Keith Instone. The mega-hotels of Vegas were all 95% sold out, yet I didn’t see anything there for me to do. Bowling Green is one of those old Midwest small towns built around a state school, removed from the hustle of real life so that students can learn in relative isolation. As far as cultural experience, Vegas is the main trend, BG is way out in the tail. Neither of these uniquely American extremes of place offered any cultural interest or hope for future renewal. Both were depressing, in very different ways. But …
