Graduation

So today's commencement speaker is hip-hop artist Chuck D, who was a DJ for our campus radio station before forming Public Enemy. Another honoree is Burt Young, who played Rocky Balboa's father-in-law (no particular connection to my school).

Still standing and listening to Elgar, while more people file into the coliseum. Have water bottle, iPhone, and Kindle.

12:35 PM: the last name is read, the tassels flipped. Now the aimless milling around, somewhat hastened by the fact that everybody's hungry.

shaken, but not stirred

So I was driving home from Commencement in the rain, somewhat hungry (I had breakfast around 7:00, and Commencement ended at nearly 1:00). Most of the cars around me were doing 60-65 MPH, but I thought "hungry or not, I don't have a pressing deadline, and it's raining; I'll drop to the speed limit." Which was fine until I got within two blocks of home, a spot we call Deadman's Curve: a steep down-hill at the bottom of which the road makes a 90-degree blind curve, with cars parked on both sides. As usual, I braked gently coming down the hill, but after the 90-degree turn, the car decided to do another 10 or 20 degrees I hadn't asked for. I corrected, and it spun around 180 degrees until I was looking into the face of the driver who had been behind me a moment before. Miraculously, she didn't hit me, and nobody else rear-ended her, and I didn't hit any of the parked cars, but I was pretty shaken when I got home.