July 31 is Saint Ignatius' feast day, and I have always been inspired by the life of Ignatius Loyola and Jesuit spirituality. I wanted to get this entry in just under the deadline so that I can authentically wish my Jesuit friends a happy Founder's Day. I sometimes think that had I been born male, I would have been a Jesuit, but then, perhaps not, as they work too hard for my bohemian style life. Anyway, Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, J-men!

This is the high season of summer, when the woods are chattering with insects at night and singing with crickets by day. It is a season I wish could last almost all year. I say that every year and hope that one day, when I am still healthy enough to appreciate it, I will move to a place somewhere in the continental USA that has a summery climate almost all year long. I don't know whether it would be Florida, Texas, or perhaps even California. I just hope I have the good fortune to be able to make that move.

"Late July" is also a brand of crackers and cookies which is based on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and is a relative of the "Cape Cod Potato Chips" which are so delicious and crunchy. Not only are the crackers organic and trans-fat-free, but they have the best package design, in my opinion, of any dry product on the market today. Check out the wonderful neo-Victorian cracker package designs showing the idealized Cape Cod scene with the boy, the dog, the family on the beach, the old sailboat, and the windmill in the diistance. When I first saw this package, I bought it just for the design. I wish I could do signs as good as this.

I am still trying to work through trigonometry problems. These don't even have the virtue of being placed in a scenario such as navigation, surveying, aviation, or warfare. They are dry abstractions rotating around the unit circle. And the solutions aren't even decimal numbers; they are left as unevaluated square roots in various combinations. I hated trigonometry in 2004, and I don't like it any better in 2007. But I must poke my way through this, and even some stony trig identity problems, in order to earn my next chapter in calculus.

Posted at 10:06 pm | link