Back from Vacation

I just returned from a week long vacation with my family in Maine (across the bay from Bar Harbor). As always a week is never enough, but that was all I had time for. Possibly the best part of the vacation was spending time with my little nephew. At 18 months, he provides a constant source of insight into how we learn. He has just learned to walk, and isn't talking yet. While I was there, I watched his ability to navagate stairs improve noticable. Little tikes like him are amazing to be around... Especially when you have someone else to hand him over to when he is cranky or needs a diper changing. Also, keeping up with him as he scurried about was excersize in and of itself. Spending time with a little guy like him, and living in a comparatively primitive cottage by the shore, makes me realize how much of the hubub of my everyday life really matters in the grander scheme.

My flight over wasn't such fun though. A red-eye into Detroit (<4hr sleep) followed by a cancelled connecting flight left me a lot of time to work through the beginning of my Ruby on Rails book and read Oryx and Crake. Both highly recommended. In general the staff at the detroit airport was very friendly and helpful, and the airport has the weirdest tunnel I've encountered anywhere. Definitely odder than Chicago. WiFi was available, but at ~$10, it was as overpriced as everything else there.