Le Café De Paris, The Boise Egyptian Theater, and Lynne McTaggart

DDS called Wednesday. They are pulling another hiring list next week and my score was expired. They wanted to let me know, so I could update my score before they pulled the list. This felt like a really good sign. I updated my score by taking the test again, but their system still uses my most recent score from a similar position, which was lower than last time. The State of Idaho has four positions with very similar on-line tests and I can retake the test every three months. My score keeps varying and I have no idea what questions I change and get right or wrong or if I do better on one of the versions of the test. I hope at this point the score doesn't matter as long as I get the interview.

Yesterday morning was my interview with Medicaid. This was for the same position title as the one I interviewed for at DDS, although agencies are autonomous here and everyone seems to do something different under the same title. This interview was fairly informal, although I had to do an Excel test after the interview. I am not good at spontaneous tests. I think I did alright, although I thought of a more creative solution after I got home. They will be conducting second interviews and are in a hurry, although I bet they are not in as much of a hurry as me. At least I felt less desperate after getting the call from DDS and I am sure that helped my attitude at the interview.

Last night I met some friends for dinner and then went to see Lynne McTaggart at the Egyptian Theater. We went to dinner at Le Café De Paris, which is a French restaurant, but last night was First Thursday and they had a special menu of Portuguese tapas.


The waitress said they were Argentinian tapas, are they the same or does the waitress not know her geography? Tapas are hors d'oeuvres,

All Tapas $4
Choose 5 for $18
Choose 7 for $25
Choose 10 for $35

Clams Alentejo
linguica sausage, cilantro, peas, wine

Queijo de Portugual
Portuguese cheese

Bifanas
marinated pork tenderloin

Caranguejo e Abacate
crab and avocado croustini, peppercorn aioli

Marinated Olives

Salmão Ahumada
smoked salmon, arugula, pears, capers, tomato dijon-vinaigrette

Camarroes piri piri
sauteed shrimp, black pepper sauce

Alcatra
red wine and garlic marinated beef

Gazpacho

Bolo de Bolacha Maria
Portuguese Cookie Cake

We chose a variety of 10, not including the clams.

The Boise Egyptian theater is super cool inside. It was recently renovated and the inside includes golden statues and Egyptian paintings on the walls. It includes a pipe organ left over from silent movies, although last night this was covered up by the stage. We sat up in the balcony, just because the theater had one and we could.



I thought the evening included a bit too much self promotion and time taken with audience participation, but it was an interesting evening. McTaggart talked a bit about John Nash's game theory, which seemed to me to make a good case against Socialism and I would like to investigate that further.

She gave two examples. One was experiments where a group of people contribute money into a communal "pot". They are generous with their contributions as long as they see that others are contributing, but once they perceive that others are freeloading, their contributions decrease as freeloading increases, until they are not contributing at all. Another example was experiments where one person is offered money and asked to share a portion with a second person. The first person decides what percentage of the money to share, and in experiments around the world, most people decide to share 50%. The conclusions, people are naturally altruistic, but need to perceive fairness.

McTaggart was promoting her latest book, The Bond. Reviews describe her as “a bridge between science and spirituality” and she researches the shortcomings of modern medicine, and quantum physics and it's application to you and the world. She seemed more scientist than hokey New Age spirituality, which people here call "whooo whooo." The idea behind The Bond was that we can create positive energy, which is most powerful as a group, which initiates positive change.

We did an Intention Experiment, where a group holds hands and sends positive energy to someone's injury, which last night was my aching arthritic hip. Afterward, I felt a bit better, and today I feel even better. During the experiment I felt like my body was rocking all over the place and I kept opening my eyes to check to make sure I still had my feet on the ground. We did another experiment where Christelle and I held hands and I sent her a mental image, which she got before we even started the experiment, but she is a good receiver. I will have to watch my thoughts around Christelle. Overall, I thought McTaggert's ideas sounded like Bill Wilson's, although not nearly as well thought out or as purposeful as AA. If there is a spiritual part of McTaggert's work, I did not get it last night, unless she equates the source of positive energy with spirituality.

I got home after 10:30 and walked out of my garage into my backyard filled with the sweet smell of my neighbor's tree, which is now a puffy snowball of flowers.

Today is free admission day at the Idaho Botanical Garden, tonight is the Eagle Gallery's First Friday and one year anniversary, tomorrow Sara and Joe are having a Kentucky Derby party and I'm invited, and Sunday Sara and I are going to see Always, Patsy Cline. I feel busy again.