thanks madalene
madalene informs me that my blogging is very sporadic. well, hi madalene.

cwa
the 55th annual conference on world affairs was two weeks ago, and damn was it awesome. i'm still organizing my photos from the conference, but they'll be up on my photo web site at mezcal.dhs.org:8080/photos and/or www.truthagainsttheworld.org/photos.

the keynote address was given by richard rodriguez, and was about how this country is a brown country populated by brown people, and we don't really acknowledge that. i should get his book, called "brown" or something. richard was a fantastic guy.

one of our new invites this year was phil plait, aka the bad astronomer. his whole bag, besides being an astronomer at sonoma state working on hubble, is debunking stupid astronomy, like those people who think we didn't send men to the moon. phil rocked, and everybody loved him.

my dad also was a participant in this year's conference, and i think everybody liked him. his combination of landscape architecture, spirituality, and holistic health experiences made him a great addition to the conference.

donal scannell was another great new invite -- he's a late-twentysomething/30ish dubliner who's into all sorts of popular culture and things. i'll be meeting him for a drink or something in london later this may. he said that he had considered making a documentary of the conference, but after a while he realized that it can't really be captured on film, since it's so dynamic. donal is also helping me, my sister, and my dad plan our trip to britain in may.

i managed to get hardy at soma to book alan simms there during the conference. not a whole lot of people showed up, but everyone who was there just loved his set. i must find some time to see him at his club, shine, in belfast.

andy ihnatko was also really cool to hang out with again. i'll have to look him up when i help cindy move to boston at the end of the summer (she's going to mit!).

one of the highlights of the conference was our friday night after-party at illegal pete's on pearl street. karen, who owns part of illegal pete's and volunteers with the conference, once again made the restaurant available to the djs alan simms and donal scannell for a night of drinking, great music (even when we blew out the tweeters on the rented speakers), and wild and crazy dancing. it was a very excellent end to a great week.