The big news is that, despite previous misgivings, I’ve gone ahead and signed a contract for a condo. Signing the contract is not the final step; that would be closing, later in June. Closing is like getting tenure, while signing the contract is like landing a tenure-track faculty job; it’s not the end of your worries, but it is the single biggest hurdle.
As you can see from the satellite image (found at TerraServer), I am already being spied on. The Man knows that I’m a troublemaker, and wants to keep an eye on me at all times.
In other news, my alma mater has chosen Big Bird to speak at commencement. Not in costume, but the actor who plays the character on Sesame Street. Not all of the students are happy. They shouldn’t complain; the only real dimension along which commencement speeches should be judged is that of brevity. Once students have had four years of education and have typically made plans for jumping into the real world (or into grad school) it must be too late for a few well-crafted words of wisdom to have much impact on their subsequent trajectories.