Buzz is coming to visit today so we can work on our distance education course. I practically haven't thought about it in months, so it will be good to get up to speed and get some of the materials written. I think we've got pretty good ideas regarding what we're going to have students do, but we need to get it defined more clearly than one would normally do in a "face-to-face" class, because you don't have the class meetings to clarify what students are to do.
Lucy and I performed our civic duty this morning by voting in the town election. There has been intense campaigning over school committee seats and a tax override. There seems to be universal agreement that an override will be needed, if we're to avoid cutting millions of dollars from the school budget. The only objections I've seen raised are people who think it's too early in the process: they want the teachers to be pink-slipped, the budget actually cut, and for everyone to run around like chickens with their heads cut off before an override passes. If it fails, there will be another chance to pass it, but it will mean holding a special election.
A couple of years ago, we stopped at two civil war battlefields on the way home from North Carolina. At Petersburg, we visited the Crater and at Gettysburg we visited the national cemetary and the "high water mark" of the confederacy. At the time, I had the idea that bicycles would be the perfect way to tour a civil war battlefield -- the separate sites are a bit far for me to want to walk from one to another, but driving a car seemed silly too. Bicycles would be perfect. So Phil and I are tentatively planning to get together sometime this year and try it out. I'm having fun looking at the various accomodations and dreaming about going. It's fun to have things to look forward to.