I don’t normally listen to Howard Stern but my attention was recently called to a set of interviews he conducted in Harlem. They make a strong – and sad – case for continuing the electoral system. Listen to the recording here and see if you think the average American should directly elect the President, or if we still need the electoral process where, hopefully, wiser minds can prevail.

On occasion, and with all the frequent fliers miles and hotel points I earn, my wife goes along for a trip. Such is the case starting today.

Not surprisingly, there are no sources about Jesus written during His lifetime. Indeed, the earliest gospel is thought to date from about 70 C.E., thirty odd years after the crucifiction. And Thallos, the earliest non-Biblical source, wrote only of one aspect of Christianity, the darkening of the skies at Christ’s crucifiction, and that only that same number of years later at a minimum, and what we know of Thallos’s writings is itself only second hand.

With several strong recommendations, my business associate and I went to this old town Pizzaria for the real thing, true Italian pizza, in Turin Italy.

After the long airplane ride from Phoenix to Philadelphia, to Rome Italy, and then up to Turin (“Torino”) Italy, it was very nice to find a small neighborhood restaurant (“Trattoria”) within walking distance of the hotel. Before leaving the states, I had used Google Earth to find nearby places and then Google’s search engine to see if there were any reviews or comments by other patrons. The Trattoria della Posta received several reviews, all positive, so it was on my “try this for sure” list.

On a recent business trip to the Washington DC area, I had a couple of spare hours to visit the National Firearms Museum. It’s in the NRA headquarters building in Virginia, just west of Washington DC. For those with street mapping GPSs, a good map or who are familiar with the area, the street address is 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA.

In a list of attributes of second-century Christianity:

And, alas, the latter is exactly what I’m trying to do, to reason Jesus as deserving of the claims Christians make.

• In-transit time: 25 hours
  Flights: Phoenix to Philadelphia, to Rome, to Turin Italy
  Seats: Middle, aisle, aisle

I’m the “check pilot” for the instructor that will do the actual teaching this week. My job is to back him up, help in the labs, and at the end, say if he’s able to teach this class on his own. But I know this person’s abilities and have no doubt he will do fine.

I’m on a three part quest to answer the following questions.

Staying Out

Sometimes I stay “out” for two classes. For example, I recently had a Tuesday-Friday in the Washington DC area and then a Monday-Thursday near Boston. Rather than flying home to Arizona on a Saturday, doing the laundry and then flying back to the east coast and Boston on Sunday, I visited a local laundromat Friday night, did some sightseeing on Saturday and Sunday morning, and then flew up to Boston on Sunday. By skipping that round trip to Arizona and back, the company saved more than enough to pay for the weekend expenses, I got some additional rest, and I got to do some sightseeing.