Attended presidential inauguration party

I have a dim recollection of being in the Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, looking out the window and seeing fireworks in the sky celebrating the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan. I have no memory of any other presidential swearing-in festivities during the 30-plus years I've been eligible to vote. ... until now.

The Teton County Democrats hosted a coffee-and-muffin get-together so we could all watch Barack Obama take the oath of office. I've been so excited by Obama's election win that I wanted to share Inauguration Day with someone, so I went. Given events of the last eight years, the room was filled with relief, joy and hope. The ceremony, the speeches, the sight of the huge crowds on the Mall in Washington,  D.C., and the sight of President Bush participating in a peaceful transition of power made me feel proud to be American.

I hope to make more of Inauguration Day in the future. Of course, it depends on who is being inaugurated. 

The Happiness Project

I'm not the only one excited about change. In an online chat with "Washington Post" readers, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and a blogger for Slate, was asked what surprised her in her happiness studies. Here's part of what she had to say:

"I was also very surprised by how much novelty and challenge contribute to happiness. Turns out that people who try new things, go new places, learn new skills, etc., are happier. This can be tough, because novelty and challenge also bring frustration and irritation - but if you can push through that, novelty and challenge can bring enormous happiness rewards.

"This is because of the importance of the "atmosphere of growth" to happiness. If you feel like you're learning, growing, making something better, helping someone or something else to grow, that makes a big difference to your happiness.

"I'm a creature of routine, and I hate feeling incompetent, so I avoided novelty and challenge. Making an effort to push myself in that way has brought me surprising boost."

Skied at Teton Pines

Don't tell Dick Cheney, but a liberal Democrat played in his backyard today.

I love cross-country skiing, and I love doing it in Jackson Hole. Over the past nine years I've hit the trails in a variety of places, but never Teton Pines, a gated community on the west bank of the Snake River where Mr. Cheney owns a home. So for today's new thing, I took my skis to Teton Pines. If you're not a Pines resident, you have to pay: $10 a visit or $8 if you buy a 10-visit punch card.

I regret not having tried it sooner. The trail, which runs around the golf course, was perfectly groomed both for Nordic skiing and skate skiing. There were just enough other people out so that I didn't feel lonely but not so many that any of us crowded each other. In addition to having great track, the course is surrounded by beautiful homes, and the Tetons provide a gorgeous backdrop. It was a perfect winter day in Jackson Hole, warm enough to ski without a hat but still crisp and clear. The sun glinted off the snow and I enjoyed an hour of no noise other than the crunch and squeak of my skis.

You have a wonderful backyard, Mr. Cheney. We don't see eye to eye on much of anything, but we both like Jackson Hole.

Lost a writing contest

Posting this as a "new thing" is kind of a joke, but it's true that I've never lost a writing contest before, because I'd never entered one. The winners of the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial competition were announced a few days ago, and alas, I was not among them. I'm definitely disappointed. But I remind myself: The winning entries were deemed better than mine, which doesn't necessarily mean my written piece was worthless. ... or does it?

Here's a quote from the book "Breathing On Your Own" Quotations from Independent Thinkers," compiled by Richard Kehl. There is no attribution:

"And I recall an account of Trollope going up to London to pick up a rejected manuscript from a publisher, getting on the train to return home, laying the bulky bundle on his lap face down, and beginning a new book on the back pages of the rejected one."

Music theory class

When you learn something and forget it, where does the knowledge go? Is is still in your brain, stored someplace that's inaccessible, kind of like a misplaced file? Or, if knowledge isn't used for a long time, does your brain erase it the way we do when we clean out our computers by deleting old documents? And if you re-learn something you previously knew, does that count as learning something new? For the purposes of my blog, I say it does.

Yestersday I began a "music theory" class with the director of the Jackson Hole Chorale. We're learning the very basics, like notes, measures, rests, etc. I know I learned all this 40 years ago when I took piano after school and learned to play the recorder in the fourth grade. But these days, as a tenor in the chorale, I find I can't hit notes or find beats without first hearing other tenors since the part. And while they're good, they don't always know what they're doing either.

Our first class started with basics: the clefs, notes, rests, ect. It was much more complex than I expected. My immediate aim is to just keep up with the class. My more ambitious goal is to be able to read music again. And I guess a really longterm goal is to not be 80 years old and blogging about taking a music theory class because I forgot what I learned 30 years ago.