nostalgia
We spent the afternoon today at Stanford. I'd wanted to explore the campus for a while, and it was worth it. The architecture is beautiful, and a part of me kind of missed the environment. Its weird, cause I graduated from RPI over 8 years ago, and while I was there I was never all that enthused. Yet, now its almost as if I'm looking back on my college days as a good experience. I guess its one of those getting older things where life was simpler back then, and a part of me misses it. So my 10 year reunion is coming up in about 2 years, and I'm actually seriously thinking of attending (I didn't attend the 5th). I don't really miss any significant number of my classmates, but I kind of miss the campus, and the memories that I have from it.
We also went to the Cantor Museum on the Stanford campus. Its a really nice museum, and the fact that its free admission makes it even more of a great place. This was the first time that David had been to a museum, and he was fairly well behaved. He had some interesting interpretations of the art that we saw.
We went to Chenery Park for dinner tonight. I had grilled lamb sirloin with gratin potatoes, sautéed spinach and red wine rosemary sauce. It was delicious. The lamb was cooked perfectly, the potatoes were incredibly creamy, and the sauce was possibly the highlight.
I watched Fahrenheit 911 tonight. I had seen an abridged version of it when it first was released, but this is the first time I saw the full film. Its depressing that the film is as relevant today as when it was first released. In fact, its potentially more relevant now.
By removing Hussein from Iraq, we created a power vacuum in the mid-east which has served to further destabilize the region, and the world far more than if we had just kept him in power. Now Iran, which was basically scared to do anything that could be construed as overtly hostile while Hussein was in power, has instigated a war between Israel and its proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. On top of that, Iraq is plunging into civil war, with assorted terror groups from outside (Syria & Iran, primarily) turning the nation into a seething pit of violence. So here we are, nearly 5 years since 9/11, and what has been accomplished?