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19:48:41 Tuesday March 04 2008

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Sara's mother and sister visited us on the weekend of February 23rd. The girls had their hair done at Christina's Spa. They all came back looking even more lovely than usual.

After their spa session we stopped by the Purdue Armory and caught the tail end of the 2008 Rube Goldberg High School Regionals.

On February 24th we had some people over to make pizza's. They were delicious and fun as always.

Just last night we stopped by campus to hear Artist Ken Rinaldo from Ohio State talk about his Autotelematic Spider Bots. He has some weird artist ideas about trans-species communication and what constitutes consciousness, but the art was interesting.

The spider-bots seemed to do an OK job of avoiding one another and the walls, but it was evident that he hadn't worked out a number of important engineering problems such as battery life. I suppose that is why he is an artist and not an engineer.

Photos of the spider-bots are in the usual place.

23:59:59 Saturday March 08 2008

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Sara and I got up early and drove down to IUPUI for the 3rd annual Darwin Day conference held by CFI Indy. That event seems to go further downhill every year. What began as an interesting event with nuanced presentations and debates has degenerated into a boring training session for primary school teachers looking to collect certificates and graduate credit.

The primary reason that I returned this year was to hear Richard Carrier Talk about the creationism vs. evolution debate as it played out in ancient Rome 1800 years ago. Unfortunately he was sick and unable to attend. We did watch a video version of his lecture which was interesting even though there was no opportunity to ask questions.

Many of the other morning presentations, such as a hokey speech by a gentleman dressed as Charles Darwin were torturous to endure. In addition the conference was also plagued by technical issues most of the morning. As a result Sara and I bailed out before noon. Supporting the science of evolution is one thing. Wasting an entire Saturday on a poorly executed event is quite another.

Fortunately not all was lost. On our way out of Indy we noticed that The Flying Cupcake Bakery was open. We had been by before, on the recommendation of braingirl, but their hours are somewhat sporadic around the holidays so we had never actually made it in. We are glad we made it in this time. We had delicious gourmet cupcakes for lunch.

Later that evening the behavioral neuroscience crew got together to check out the newest bar in town, the Black Sparrow. It is a nice place with a very artsy/hipster feel to it. You can tell that the owners put thought into the design. There is lots of stencil art. Live DJs are common (The Soul Stewards played that night).

The cocktails are modeled on drinks popular during prohibition. Many contain whiskey and bitters of some type. Feel free to check out my photos of the evening including Sara's arm wrestling victory.

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