Grand Rapids

I spent most of the day at a conference table -- with a window view looking out onto the Grand River. Not bad -- not bad at all.

I had forgotten how much daylight there is in June this far north. It's nearly 10 p.m. and there is still light in the sky.

About the people here: white -- lots and lots of Northern European white -- very very tanlesss white. I did see a few Hispanics in Wal-Mart -- all very short. I couldn't recognize their accent (not that I'm all that good at that kind of thing, anyway). I suspect that they are from South America somewhere.

I noticed, too, that a lot of the English speakers here have a strong accent -- a mixture of Illinois and southern US -- except with a lot more "gravel" in the mouth -- slurring everything together and ignoring all the "t" sounds. Interesting.

Also, people smoke a lot -- even in public. It would be a whole lot easier to get used to the mushy glottal stops than the tobacco.