So I finished reading Voltaire's Candide for the very first time. It was a well written, lively paced, satire. Yet, I was disappointed. It was all satire and abuse and no philosophy. I'm not certain why it has a reputation for being the definitive rebuttal of Leibniz. Yet, my final verdict is that it's well worth reading. Truly, the South Park of yesteryear. Next on the to-read list is Don Quixote.

At coffee hour after the liturgy, I ended up in a group of well read, intellectually curious young men. (Young defined as mostly under 40 years of age.) We had a long discussion on the history of marriage in society and whether or not it was appropriate for a secular, liberal state like the US to legalize gay marriage. My daughter ambled by, sat down and listened. I think she was in shock that other people sometimes talked in the same fashion as her pop.

With my youngest daughter having been carted away by my mother to visit my grandmother for the weekend and my eldest daughter babysitting for the evening, my wife and I went out to a cookout just over the river with some friends. It was a nice time, very low key. We cut out before the plans to watch a movie I've been wanting to see for while fully materialized. (The movie was the very highly regarded Russian film Ostrov about a murderer wrestling with his conscience.) My consolation prize was watching Terminator 3 once we got home. I'm undecided about T3. They had a bit of a twist at the end that wrapped up the super massive black hole in plot. Yet, as is typical in the case of movies dealing with computers of one sort or the other, I think they traded authenticity for believability which made it hard for me to keep suspending my disbelief. I also think it needs points taken off for a misleading title.

If weather holds today, I'm going kite flying with my mother. She's due down in this corner of Ohio about an hour or so from now. After kite flying shall be grilling of sausages and hamburgers. I should tidy up a bit.