Labor Day Weekend Gordon and I drove up to KC for the Mid-America Regional Gathering. He has a little Mazda Roadster and it was a fun top down drive although I came back a bit sun burnt.
It was an older crowd. I would estimate 58 average. Mensa as an organization has not done a good job of perpetuating itself across the generations. If we are not careful we will wind up like the Shakers.
The venue was said to be a former Sheraton now a HoJo franchise. Spectacular loby, carpets had been replaced, and the towels were fresh and unscratchy. A bit shabby here and there. Big rooms still furnished with some danish modern almost collectable furniture. If I owned the property I would make most of it condominiums. Its across from a big new town center style shopping center called Zona Rosa. KCI is nearby. Its a long way from Royals stadium. But if esprit de corps will get a hotel through the recession this hotel has it from the manager down to housekeeping service. Every staff member is friendly/perky/efficient.
There were several interesting lecture/presentations. I liked best Lewis Diuguid's (Kansas City Star) lecture on media and Miss Lovinia, Dominatrix Extraordinaire's candid observations on sadomasochism.
Lunch Saturday Gordon and I drove down to Country Club Plaza. I wanted to refresh my memory of Kansas City Steak House Soup and compare todays soup at its source to the many internet recipes. Gordon asked how I would describe the Plaza. Big grin...”that's easy. Its 'The World's Original Shopping Center”.' That's the chamber slogan and I don't see any sense in reinventing wheels.
My book for the weekend was George Friedman's THE NEXT 100 YEARS. At Mensa gatherings a book is an ice breaker, an invitation to “What are you reading?”.
Saturday evening in the Hospitality Suite two old boys (one my age and one about 10 years older) were bull shitting over glasses of wine. The older one said he kept a log of Greenspan's market moving comments and claimed the time line of those comments was a Fibonacci series. Hmm...he thought this was proof of a conspiracy between Greenspan and his “rich friends. I think conspiracy would plot events out in a more random time line but a natural economy could generate events which need to be addressed by the Federal Reseve Chairman. Those events might occur in a Fibonacci series time line.
Driving home we began with the scenic route at Shawnee Mission in the Country Club District and drove south on Mission Road with a side trip on Tomahawk Road. Gordon was fascinated with landscaping on modest looking but expensive saltbox houses. South on Mission Road is like going outward through onion layers of suburban domestic architecture/gardening culture. Lots of public statuary and bits of landscaping around them at street entrances. It was suppressing to see MacMansion infill in Prairie Village. I wondered if they simply enlarged 1600 sq. foot ranch houses or tore down the older houses Beverly Hills style.
The Flint Hills are wonderful this time of year with late summer plants in full bloom (sunflowers) or beginning their autumn colors (sumac). Still its good to be home and googling topics from the weekend... Media, endomorphins and Sadomasochism, hail resistant roofing, Japanese Yew, Greenspan and Fibonacci...