This is just a brief note to let everyone know that I plan to be at this year's ASI convention in Louisville, Kentucky. If you plan to be there, let me know, and perhaps we will have a chance to catch up.

Tags: travel, kentucky, asi, 3abn

This past Sunday, July 29, I went with my friends Adam and Gabriela, and Michael and Jan, to the St. Louis Art Museum. I didn't take any pictures inside, since I assumed that photography there was prohibited (the usual practice in art museums).

I was very impressed. They had many kinds of art from a wide variety of cultures and ages. Everything from ancient Egyptian, to Native American, to Asian, to European, to modernist, and more. Besides an extensive collection of paintings, sculptures, and other purely artistic objects, they also had many artist household items, including chairs, cabinets, tables, clocks, vases, lamps, tableware, and so forth, from across the last 200 years or so. They also had reconstructions of typical American and European upper class household rooms from the 1800s or thereabouts, which were quite fascinating.

This was taken at the entrance. The regal figure in the statue is none other than Saint Louis himself:

Tags: travel, missouri

The previous Sunday, July 22, I went with my friends Adam and Gabriela to New Harmony, Indiana. The drive took about 1.5 hours. Although I had heard about it a number of times, this was my first time visiting.

New Harmony was first established as a religious community, and later as a more secular communal experiment. You can read more about its interesting history here and here.

After coming across the old toll bridge joining Illinois and Indiana, our first stop was the Atheneum, a modernist design visitors center. (A more interesting side profile photo is available here.) Aside from a tour and film, which we skipped, the only other attraction inside was a gift shop. One fascinating curiosity in the gift shop was a remake of a 4-sided wood block from the time of the second New Harmony community. The blocks were hung at each worker's station. Each side was a different color, and each color indicated the respective worker's performance that day.



This walled garden with a fountain in the center is a fairly recent addition:



My companions on this adventure were Gabriela and Adam:



A large open courtyard, surrounded by a brick wall, is known as the Roofless Church. Inside is this very prominent structure, which has a statue in the middle symbolizing the descent of the Holy Spirit (that's me in the foreground):



This hedge maze contains a round "temple" in the middle, which is basically a room for meditation. Around the ceiling are various quotes from the Bible and other more contemporary sources; I believe this is a reconstruction based on a hedge maze from the original Harmonist colony:



There were other interesting things there, but our time was limited and we did not see it all. Unfortunately the current community is a bit hickey, and undoubtedly does not reflect the ideals of either of the town's original communities. From various reports, the original New Harmony was quite a spectacle in its day.

Tags: travel, indiana

For some reason I've been taking a lot of these lately! (Maybe it's a testament to the lack of interesting scenery in Illinois?)

This one was taken June 24:

After nearly eight years on dial-up, I am happy to announce that last Thursday I went online with a broadband connection. My broadband provider, MyChoice, is relatively new, having been in the area for maybe about one year. It is also a little expensive, about $50 per month (although, in return, I can drop my land line phone service, cancel by dial-up account, and reduce my cell phone minutes by using Skype, etc., so $50 isn't too much of a hit). Other that satellite, MyChoice is the only means of getting broadband at home in my little town. Now I can finally enjoy at home many aspects of the Internet that were previously unavailable or impractical.

Many of my friends and family are already using my michaelprewitt.com email address. However, if you are using my older shawneelink.com address, please be aware that it will soon be discontinued, since it is tied to my dial-up account, which will soon be canceled. Email sent to that address will bounce, so please change to my michaelprewitt.com address now.

For reasons of privacy and avoiding spam, I can't post my full email address here, but feel free to contact me if you need it.

Tickle (www.tickle.com) is a website that offers all kinds of personal inventory tests (IQ, personality, etc.). Some months back I took an IQ test, and scored 152. I wasn't really expecting to score so high, and the test was easier than I would have expected for that result. But still, it's fun to say I got an IQ score of 152!

Tickle allows friends to share their profiles and view each other's test results. Click here for a link to mine.

Google Mobile is a cool service that lets you get all kinds of interesting information on your cell phone. Any cell phone with text messaging capability will work.

All you do is send a short text message to Google Mobile, and it responds with information. For example, you can type "weather 62890" and it will return the weather report for that zip code. If you've ever sent someone a text message, you'll have no problem with this. It's super easy.

Some of the answers provided by Google Mobile include: local restaurants, weather, directions, flight status, translation, and currency conversion. (A complete list is given on the page linked above.)

Check it out!