GinohnNews

G: We went to a party at TVTom's last Friday, and much hilarity was had. But mostly by John, I got tired a bit early and fell asleep! But before that I chatted with Joe, Liana, Kevin, and a few others.

The next morning I remembered it was Shred Day at the bank just in time. I had cleaned out our filing cabinet a few months ago and was saving everything for that. A big truck comes and they dump your papers in it and you can watch through a monitor everything getting cut up into tiny pieces. I saw Pete there and he said he shredded 40 lbs. of paper since he saves anything with his name and address on it to get destroyed.

Then we got ready and went to Havre De Grace MD for the wedding of James Strother (John's step brother) and Kristin Cane. The town was very nice and the wedding was in a cute little church. Family members who were present - Toni and David, Mary (and her girlfriend Britt), Uncle Bill, Thom, and Bill and Dee. After the ceremony and receiving line, all of those mentioned (except Toni and David) walked down the street to have a glass of sangria at a little bar/restaurant Bill and Dee had lunch at earlier. I think Bill treated almost all of us to sangria - Thanks Bill! I chatted mostly with Mary and Britt. Then we walked down the street to the reception at the Vandiver Inn. There were pirates on the porch, singing. One had a cockatoo on his shoulder. I went to the bar and asked for a "fruity girly drink." I had about three over the next hour. They were small. I think they made them by adding coconut rum to oj and a splash of cranberry or grenadine. It was like A Day At The Beach without the Ameretto - so they called it a Malibu Beach.

So there was lots of pirate songs and hors d'oeuvres and drinks on the porch and inside the Inn and then dinner was outside under a very large pavilion. John and I were served a special vegan dinner of spinach and mushroom ravioli. John went up to the buffet for extra asparagus and potatoes, since they put very little on the plate.

I sat next to Toni and we had some nice conversations. It was a really nice reception and we stayed longer than we planned. We left around 8 to drive home and take care of Katy. John took a nap and I gave her a walk and then we headed up to Little Bennet regional park for a Beltane gathering. Some people had already turned in to their tents for the night by the time we got there, but Izolda, Rich, Petra, Dorian, Amethyst, Kevin, Jim, Melissa, and their baby were hanging around the fire, drumming, playing instruments, and singing. Just as we were leaving to go up there, Rich text messaged me asking if I wanted to sing First Of May. I wrote back that they shouldn't wait for us since we were just leaving. It turned out that he wanted me to sing it over the phone since no one else could quite remember all the lyrics. But I didn't know until I got there so we sang it then, and some other JoCo songs, and some Weird Al and others.

Kevin had brought a couple of small, cheap, light up swords/light sabers, that were a bright blue. He and John had a sword fight, then John took both and went off further into the dark and started swinging them around and it looked very very cool. Rich put on a show like that too, and so did Izolda. We left around 2am after a very nice time. But we were nearly out of gas so Kevin followed us out. I was worried we wouldn't find anything open that late but no problem. Yay!

The next day I was in my studio for the Artful Afternoon. Was fairly uneventful.

On Monday we went jogging w/TVTom after John came home from work. Still in our jogging clothes, we went to the library for a free vegan dinner and a lecture from someone at Compassion Over Killing. It started at 6:30, but I'd forgotten about it until we were finished jogging and we got there around 7:30. There was a lady lecturing and she had a book called Why Animals Matter. There was just a pan of vegan macaroni and something. It's the kind of food that will be made for an event like this to show people who aren't used to vegan eating that it can be very similar to what they are used to eating, but it's not the kind of thing I would make and eat. Definitely not healthy. But we all had a plate because we were hungry. I got the book afterwards too.

When we got home John and I put together another piece of Ikea furniture for the game library - a cd tower to hold cards and small things like that.

Erwin Schrodinger: Last week, I described a thought experiment that demonstrates problems with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics when magnified into our macro world. In today's class I will add a new dimension to the problem— intelligence within the system.

Consider a box similar in shape and size to last week's box. There is a note on the closed lid. I've copied the note here, on the blackboard.

"In the beginning, this box contained all the unassembled implements of cat destruction: a detector, trigger, hammer, a vial of deadly poisonous gas, a lump of radioactive material, and a timer linked to a spring-loaded latch. A very smart cat is also inside this box. The cat has been trained to assemble all the pieces of his possible demise. The box will automatically open one hour after the cat turns on the detector and triggering mechanism. During this time, there is a 50% chance the hammer will break the vial, releasing deadly poisonous gas and killing the cat."

Now, while we are waiting patiently for the box to open, the Copenhagen Interpretation tells us that a cat which is neither dead nor alive has built the very instrument that puts him in that questionable, but very real, state. How can that be?

C.S. Lewis: Well, obviously the cat is still alive. How else could he build the box's interior mechanism?

Friedrich Nietzsche: The cat's dead, man. The question is, how shall we build our system of ethics, when all we have is a dead cat on our hands?

Lewis: Oh please. That's what you said last week, when it was a just an ordinary cat. This time it's an extraordinary cat, one that can build his own place, live through his own sacrifice, and emerge unscathed from the wardrobe— or box, if you please.

David Hume: Wait a tick. How do we even know there's a cat in the box? What evidence do we have, aside from the note left on the box? And who wrote the note?

Schrodinger: I don't think that's so important. It's just a thought experim—

Nietzsche: That cat was good as dead as soon as the lid closed.

Lewis and Hume: Shut up.

Hume: Perhaps the cat has three states: dead, alive, and non-existent.

Lewis: Perhaps the cat wrote the note...

Richard Dawkins: Come on, people, look at yourselves. You are seriously discussing a cat that's smart enough to build a Rube Goldberg suicide device. Why don't we stick a leprechaun in the box while we're at it, or clap our hands for Tinkerbell?

Billy Graham: Of course the cat exists! Read the note again.

Schrodinger: Alright I will. "In the beginning, this box contained all—"

Graham: Yayuss— Amen! "In the Beginning..." And soon the box will open and we will see the cat agaiiiin.

Dawkins: But just because there's a note doesn't mean that the cat exists. 

Nietzsche: Oh it exists all right. And it's dead. We killed the last one and now we've taught this one to kill itself.

Everyone: Shut up, Nietzsche!