I was reading the other day about how, at the temple of Delphi, when the holy fire was extinguished, it could not be re-lit by earthly fire. Instead, according to Plutarch, it would be lit using "concave mirrors, of a figure formed by the revolution of an isosceles rectangular triangle." A few days later, inspired by the Greeks (and in imminent danger of falling asleep during a meeting at work), and wondering what was meant by the term "isosceles rectangular triangle," I decided to try to derive the formula for the focus of a parabola. I gave up after muddling into trigonometric identities long since forgotten, and didn't bother looking up the answer. (I did, though, manage to stay awake through the rest of the meeting.) Today, I saw this picture in a NYT story about how students are taking too many AP tests. Hopefully those students will be qualified to be Delphic priests!

There's a shelf at my mother's house that is devoted to storing, apparently for eternity, the fruit preserves that people give her as gifts. This summer I decided to help her clean off the shelf. We threw out the jars that looked obviously toxic, but (I'm still not sure why) I decided to salvage the unopened jars and try them out.

So, for the past month or so, I've been testing these aged fruit preserves. I've thrown out some, but a few have been ok. I ate one jar of a brownish fruit that could have been either figs or some unknown berries, and another jar that was either apricots or peaches. Now I'm eating a jar that's simply labeled, "Crabapples '92."

Apart from an admonition about botulism, AM's comment was, "why would anyone want to preserve crabapples?"

Unless the Twins manage to pull off a miracle in their last three games, this year's MLB postseason lineup is going to be very disappointing. When the Twins aren't in the playoffs, I root for the team that "deserves it most" as measured by when they last won a championship. By that measure, almost none of the teams in this year's postseason deserve it. Seven of the eight teams have appeared in the World Series since 2002 (Yankees '03, Red Sox '04 & '07, Tigers '06, Angels '02, Phillies '08, Cardinals '06, Rockies '07), and five of those teams have won this decade (the Rockies and Tigers lost; the Yankees lost in '03 but won in '00). The remaining team is the Dodgers, who technically deserve it the most, but as an adopted San Franciscan I have a hard time rooting for them, especially after how their fans behaved at the game I went to in August.

So I guess you can call me pretty apathetic about this postseason. This is probably just as well, since all of the games will be on at 2.30 in the morning where I am. Of course, last time I spent a fall in Europe (2002) it was one of the most memorable postseasons in recent history. So I guess my position is: I'll get up in the middle of the night to watch any Game 7, and World Series Game 6 if it was 2-2 after four.

Unless the Twins are in it.

I arrived in Virginia yesterday, and I'm staying with Almea while I continue to look for an apartment. For those of you who don't know about it, the website spotcrime.com is a lot of fun. It gives you a searchable map pinpointing all the reported crimes in an area during a specified time period.

Something interesting I saw on the website: Arlington, a city with a population of about 200,000, had about 200 reported crimes in the past two months. Alexandria, with a population of 150,000, had about 200 reported crimes in the past two weeks. Washington, a city with a population of about 600,000, had about 200 reported crimes in the past four days.

According to the spotcrime map, most of the Washington crimes are not in the poorest neighborhoods, but are instead property crimes in some of the trendiest parts of the city. Perhaps criminals have easy pickings among the young and well-to-do. (I am reminded of the Harvard students who were repeatedly burgled when they left their dorm rooms unlocked.) I'm not sure, however, why the trendier parts of Arlington have so many fewer crimes; maybe would-be criminals are deterred by northern Virginia's famous transportation problems.

My apartment in Arlington just fell through, so I'm back on craigslist looking for a place to live. My favorite listing so far: "$650 Basement near Ballston with 20 Some restaurant workers." After I clicked on it in sheer fascination, I realized they were refering to their ages, not their numbers.

In the past month, three people independently recommended that I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Two bought me the book. The other said, "this book will make you want to tear off all your clothes and go running into the wilderness."

I just finished the book, and I can only nod in agreement. And I bet it has an even more profound effect on non-runners.

We've been back in the U.S. for a week now and are halfway through our Tour de California. Some things we've noticed:

• air conditioning
  
• weird small green money
  
• fat people
  
• sandwiches with more stuff than bread
  
• toilets with lots of water
  
• diversity
  
• SO MUCH DRIVING!!!
  

What kind of important issues will Justice Sotomayor be handling in her first term on the Supreme Court? How about crush fetishes? In United States v. Stevens, the justices will be considering the constitutionality of a statute banning the depiction of animal cruelty, which was apparently intended to crack down on crush fetish porn but whose language is sufficiently broad to prohibit depictions of all kinds of animal cruelty, whether or not high heels are involved. Here's an interesting (if slightly technical) preview.

It's already been a year since this post about Norman Schwarzkopf's "Be Bear Aware" campaign. I'm planning on going back into the mountains, and for the first time I'm going to be camping in grizzly country - the Wind River Range.

Following General Schwarzkopf's advice, I'm trying to be Bear Aware, and for the first time I've bought bear spray. Annoying thing about the bear spray: it has an expiration date of June 2010. That means even if I don't use it I have to buy some more next summer. I was hoping I could keep this canister forever, kind of like a fire extinguisher. What? Those have expiration dates too? Oh man.

Wailin was interviewed about social media on last night's episode of Chicago Tonight, the local news program on Chicago's PBS station. I thought she did a nice job!