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Sunday September 13, 2009 Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers Meetup at the Uptown Lunds. Smaller than most MnSpec Meetups; the date had been chosen late and therefore announced late.

There were a couple of newcomers.

Agenda: readings by members. As usual, the problems writers were concerned about and the problems listeners saw didn't always coincide.

***Afterwards, I went to the Uptown Rainbow supermarket and picked up this week's flyers.

Took the #21 bus to East Lake Library. Took out Denis J. Hauptly, _Something Really New: Three simple steps to creating truly innovative products_. Worth reading just for the horrible examples. My favorite: a cell phone for the blind and low-sighted which included a camera.

Then to Cub Supermarket.

Leaving Cub, I found myself more aware of my surroundings than usual. Took me a few seconds to figure out why. There was a woman whose high heels clicked audibly, and I was "seeing" with echolocation.

Stopped in at Target to pick up their weekly flyer, and then home.

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Monday September 14, 2009 Radio: interview with the new president of Minneapolis College of Art and Design. At least while I was listening, two of his assumptions weren't questioned by the interviewer or by people who called or emailed in.

First: Design is best taught under a system developed for teaching people who don't work with their hands -- or, in most cases, with their eyes.

Second: Designers are visual thinkers. It's one of those obvious things which might not be true. There are professional photographers who don't think visually.

***To Southwest Senior Center, to access Internet.

***In the evening, my neighborhood organization (SENA) had its annual meeting at Lake Hiawatha Park Rec Center.

On the way there, I stopped in at Sibley Park and picked up the South Central parks schedule.

I passed a former hardware store which is becoming Angry Catfish Bicycle and Coffee Bar. Offhand, I'd class that business name as "twee punk."
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