“Vulcan’s bed”<\/a>, for example, is a response to his time with me in Lava Beds National Monument two years ago; it is his version of all my photos. So while I know that he’ll have phenomenal experiences in Egypt, I hope to see them creep (or smash) into his poetry and other writings.<\/p>\nOpen some doors; I’m sure he’ll walk through them. Morris has been a wonderful town for Tom to grow up in, but it’s a pretty small world. Thomas has had the huge advantage of living in the UK twice, and travelling in Europe on both of those trips, but it’s still been a very European life. You represent such a fascinating crossroads of history and culture: Mediterranean and Arab and African and Islamic and pharaonic and crowded and vibrant and changing and old and new. In 3.5 weeks he’ll only be able to sample<\/em> such a feast, probably taking more than he realizes in some ways and less in others. When he comes back, though, I suspect he’ll never quite see things the same, sometimes in ways that may take years to fully realize.<\/p>\nI know that he’ll be a tiny mite on the huge organism that is Cairo, so odds are that you’ll never even notice he was there. You’ll loom huge for him, however, and we appreciate all you have to offer.<\/p>\n
Best wishes,<\/p>\n
Nic aka Thomas’s Dad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn, our son leaves for 3.5 weeks in Egypt. I’m fairly certainly he was six years old last week, with a wonderful high voice. Now there’s this 18-year old bass who’s just finished his second year of full-time college classes at UMM, graduates from high school at the end … Continue reading “My letter to Egypt”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25,19],"tags":[741,742,76,737,557,709,743,738,739,247,740,124,558,744,490,513,38,736,225,861],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-family","category-travels","tag-aswan","tag-cairo","tag-culture","tag-egypt","tag-graduate","tag-hampshire-college","tag-jayne-blodgett","tag-luxor","tag-mediterranean","tag-morris","tag-nile","tag-poetry","tag-school","tag-sheri-breen","tag-thomas","tag-tom","tag-travel","tag-trip","tag-umm","tag-writing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-pb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1592,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2012\/08\/17\/us-dept-of-energy-digging-sustainability-at-umm\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":0},"title":"US Dep’t of Energy digging sustainability at UMM","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"17 Aug 12","format":false,"excerpt":"The U.S. Department of Energy posts video featuring the sustainability efforts at the University of Minnesota, Morris.","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/10\/30\/why-umm-students-need-to-vote-on-the-levy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":1},"title":"Why UMM students need to vote on the levy","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"30 Oct 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is a letter to the editor for the University Register, UMM's student newspaper... Tuesday, the 8th of November, the residents of the Morris Area School District will turn out to vote on a proposed school levy. While most UMM students realize that they can vote in this election, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":441,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/02\/05\/why-publicly-funded-education-is-so-important\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":2},"title":"Why publicly funded education is so important","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"5 Feb 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter Wyckoff, another of my fine colleagues, recently testified in the state legislature on the importance of publicly funding the kind of work we do here at UMM. PeeZed's got the whole transcript up, so I'll let you go there to read Pete's fine words. I really appreciate how nicely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Education"","block_context":{"text":"Education","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/education\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Words (almost), tumbling","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/67\/165714013_42479d9131_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":430,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/01\/28\/loads-o-open-mic-night-photos\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":3},"title":"Loads o’ Open Mic Night photos","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"28 Jan 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Thursday was another excellent Open Mic Night at UMM as part of the series of Open Mic Nights hosted by UMM's Campus Activities Council Concerts Committee. (For those who are interested, these typically happen on the last Thursday of every month during the school year. Their web presence, sadly, is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"UMM Open Mic Night, 25 Jan 2007 - 001","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/136\/372172901_5f16c2a3cc_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1249,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2010\/04\/06\/what-should-a-new-umm-director-of-information-technology-person-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":4},"title":"What should a new UMM Director of Information Technology person do?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Apr 10","format":false,"excerpt":"This is essentially a re-posting from the UMM CSci blog. UMM has recently opened a position for a new Director of Information Technology. The full job description is attached, and the description and application page are on-line. Some highlights from the \"Purpose of the Position\" section: General priorities for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":540,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/20\/umm-unofficially-rocks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1561,"position":5},"title":"UMM (unofficially) rocks!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"We just got back from the MICS programming contest, and it looks like one of our teams took first, with another placing 8th out of 42 teams. (These are unofficial results, but I'm pretty sure these are solid.) Huzzah! One of our teams took first at the MICS contest this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Victory!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/85\/276227701_fab9b7d6e9_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}