Cianna is having her first movie theater experience here at the 11:45am showing of Shrek 3 at the Majestic 20. The auditorium is virtually empty. She's enjoying the popcorn and rocking on the foldup seats.

- mike lee - silver spring, md

We arrived back at the airport after a very productive day of locking in several high technology performances and presentations by the Media Lab for our national conference this September. This brought us back to where we left off after a similar meeting 14 months ago after which management above me imploded and left our sponsorship of the lab to lapse.

My event planning colleagues were completely enchanted by the possibilities for showcasing the latest advances in digital music performance, robotics, human augmentation and more.

And to my surprise, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Media Lab and driving force behind the One Laptop per Child project, walked off the US Air Shuttle from DC. He said he's back in Boston for just a few days before flying out again. He told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes a couple weeks ago that he travels over 330 days a year. Changing the world is hard work!

There are a few photos from today on Flickr.

- mike lee

...arriving to rain showers.

- mike lee - boston

It's almost jarring to see John Maeda's lab with lights out and no students. It's only 10:15am and I suspect the nightowl geniouses are just getting breakfast. But Amna is here as always keeping the lab running smoothly.

- mike lee - boston

I managed to get up early enough to walk to the Wheaton subway station to begin my trek to Reagan Airport and ultimately Boston. To my delight, I saw that Zipcar is now deployed in our town! Now that's reason enough to get an account.

Since I was making good time, I ended up skipping the Metro and hopping on a taxi which allowed me to get to the airport to board an earlier US Air Shuttle flight. Now I'll be able to stop into the MIT Press Bookstore and do a little extra schmoozing at the lab before our tour and meetings.

The meetings today are for my colleagues who are planning this coming September's convention in Boston and our multi-city 50th anniversary celebrations throughout 2008. We will be talking about how we'll showcase the work of the Media Lab at these events.

- mike lee - composing this post in flight

The new mystery novel from St. Martin's Press featuring a photo of mine on the cover, Raven Black, arrived today from Amazon. The reproduction looks great. Now I have to find time to read the novel.

Also in today's deliveries were the lastest issue of JPG Magazine, and Dan Price's little sketchbook, How To Make A Journal of Your Life. Good in-flight reading for my quick trip to Boston tomorrow.

- mike lee - wheaton, md

- mike lee - wheaton, md

After lunch at Boston Market, we went to the 11th annual Wings of Fancy live butterfly exhibit at nearby Brookside Gardens' South Conservatory. The greenhouse full of North American, Mexican, Brazilian and Costa Rican butterflies opens every year in May and operates until September. This year, asian butterflies were added to make the representation truly global. Seeing all the cute kids with the variety of gentle butterflies, I wondered if there was a potentially dangerous species somewhere in the world. A probe into Google turned up flesh-eating caterpillars in Hawaii !

Anyway, better photos of the exhibit are on Flickr.

- mike lee - wheaton, md

Photos from today: Early morning intermodal walk from home to Wheaton Metro station, marvelling at the refrigerator-sized blocks of Durafoam that were being placed in the new parking garage at the station, wearing a jacket and tie for my last two interviews with division directors as part of my attempt to get rehired (I think the sessions went well), decaying 8th Street Stripes, and my gazpacho soup for lunch at Cafe Atlantico. It was a pretty quiet day as many took the day off to start the long weekend early.

- mike lee - washington, dc

While looking for lunch at the National Building Museum this sunny day, I picked up a copy of National Geographic's Camera Phone Book by Aimee Baldridge and Robert Clark. It's probably the most info-packed book on camera phones. I'd say the book is for the advanced amateur and above as it covers some pretty technical topics (but clearly and concisely). There's an excerpt from the book on USA Weekend. I recommend picking up a copy if you want to go beyond casual photography with your phonecam, and have a recent model with decent image resolution.

- mike lee - washington, dc