Sesquicentennial Celebration: 50 + 50 + 50 More
Chad & Pete turn 50 in the next year (Sept 11th, 2019 & Sept 1st, 2020), and Kirk has been given a green light by his doctor to live 50 more. So we’ve decided to celebrate these three events together with our closest friends (no significant others or children, sorry!) on March 13-16th. We will do daytime hikes and enjoy nighttime conversations under the stars.
Our house: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/19037196
14919 East Cavedale Drive, Scottsdale, AZ 85262, United States - Click for map
Adventure possibilities
The area is rich with natural recreation opportunities. Options include hiking in Saguara National Park, Madera Canyon, or Sabino Canyon; mountain-biking on the Arizona Trail; a private tour of Colossal Cave; and a taco/beer crawl in Tucson.
Here are some links to whet your appetite:
Saguaro National Park:
The Arizona Trail:
Madera Canyon:
Sabino Canyon:
Colossal Cave:
Tucson Tacos:
Saguaro National Park
Dinners in Style of Kant-Franklin-Franklin
During the day and throughout we will likely have dozens of conversations among ourselves or just quiet time. But for dinner, I’d love to follow in the footsteps of the great dinner conversation hosts. I share some of their guidelines here:
1. Size of the Group. Kant says the dinner party should have no fewer than three and no more than nine guests. This provides enough voices to keep a single conversation going, and prevents the group from growing too large and breaking up into smaller side conversations among those sitting near each other.
2. The Host. A Kantian dinner party is presided over by a host responsible for maintaining an open, inclusive and flowing conversation -- and particularly one in which no one voice dominates and the voices of all participants at the table are heard.
3. "Duty of Secrecy." Kant insists that guests agree not to repeat anything said at the dinner party afterwards, on the grounds that this establishes the "trust" necessary for a genuinely open conversation.
4. Respect for Fellow Guests. Perhaps most importantly, Kant believes that it is the responsibility of each guest to preserve conditions of respect by avoiding all "dogmatism" and ensuring that in all of their contributions to the conversation "mutual respect and benevolence always shine forth."
5. Focus. You must have a single conversation. You talk to the whole table and the whole table listens. The whole time. That’s 8 brains on one topic. Jefferson chose random topics; Franklin focused on ways to improve the self and society. For me, the most important thing is that when someone is speaking, we all listen and respond with authenticity.
6. No Cell Phones. Kant, Franklin & Jefferson were all in agreement that checking Instragram was disastrous for any dinner gathering.
logistics
We’ll meet at Phoenix International Airport on Thursday evening and depending on everyone’s arrival, we’ll take a few Uber’s to our place. The main dinner will start at 8pm on Thursday so it would be great if you could join by then. It’s 45 minutes to the airport from our house. Friday and Saturday we’ll do some light hikes and then return to the airport on Sunday for flights back home — check-out is around noon so most will fly back on early afternoon flights.