When news broke today of George Tenet's resignation from the CIA, what came to mind was Jackson Hole.

I went to the Wyoming town back in 1998 for an American Academy of Achievement conference, an invite I lucked into at the time and haven't forgotten since. Famous people met high schoolers for a few days at a resort, and philanthropist sponsors picked up the bill. (Thank you, Pete Manos.) The assembled collection couldn't have been stranger: Michael Dell, Naomi Judd, R.L. Stine, this general I'd never heard of named Wesley Clark, and a crowd of others. Dick Cheney told a story about locking himself out of the Pentagon, and it was actually funny. Colin Powell and Tom Clancy sat on a couch and appeared to talk strategy. I got to tell Susan Butcher she was my hero in third grade. Puff Daddy showed up for a whole evening.

Apparently too, Robert Pinsky and I discussed poetry, Northwestern and "hand-shaking techniques." Or so says the e-mail I sent to friends after arriving home. Considering how Pinsky showed off his dance moves on the last night there, the hand-shaking thing must have happened.

That e-mail was what I dug up this afternoon in pursuit of my George Tenet story. The Colin Powell Incident was at the same event, but that story's already appeared in this space. And besides, the Tenet story was better…

He was on some panel discussion, a few folks up front in a full room, when he started talking about his Georgetown years. The Jesuit education was a great one to get, Tenet said. Then finishing up four years at a Jesuit high school, I certainly agreed.

After the panel ended, I ran into Tenet outside the room. Figuring he knew Washington well enough, I told him I went to Gonzaga and that I appreciated its education in school and in life. He asked me how Gonzaga was, and I gave it the best review I could. Which, if you aren't familiar with Gonzaga folks, was of course a pretty damn positive one.

High school was a few years off for his son, but Gonzaga sounded like a good thing for the kid, Tenet told me. "I want him to go there," he said. "He wants to go to Prep, but I don't want him hanging out with yuppies."

Cue wild Gonzaga-man applause.

I asked him how he kept all those secrets, and he told me it was like any job. You left the bad stuff at the office. He asked where I was going to college the next fall, and I told him Northwestern. "Good luck," he said, "you'll freeze your ass off out there."

And I did. But his son came up again today, in the director's speech to CIA employees. Tenet joked as the kid sat nearby: "John Michael is going to be a senior next year. I'm going to be a senior with him in high school. We're going to go to class together. We're going to party together. I'm going to learn how to instant message his friends — that would be an achievement."

But guess which high school?

In the New Yorker this week, Ben McGrath writes about the approaching 200th anniversary of the fatal duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.

Having fallen months behind on my New Yorker reading, I invite you to join me in slacking. Watch the Aaron Burr "Got Milk" commercial here.

In her review of the oncoming Harry Potter movie, the AP's Christy Lemire analyzes the results of giving the director's chair to Alfonso Cuaron — best known for his work on Y Tu Mamá También. According to Lemire, Cuaron's tone makes the new film, among other things, "more stimulating for adults."

Various people have told me I've been writing about cicadas an awful lot. But you've got to understand: For the next 17 years, there will be no good reason at all to write about cicadas. None. Sure, there will be occasional referencing in the near future, name-checking cicadas like they were "Show me the money!" or Coolio. But there will be nothing of substance.

Substance such as what occurred at my house last night.

The doorbell rang around nine o'clock, and there was a woman on the porch, asking for help. She needed a flashlight. As she was driving down our street, a cicada had flown into the open window of her Mercedes loaner car and not flown back out. She couldn't see the bug as she drove but could hear it screeching somewhere near her in the dark car. Rather than risk the cicada flying into her face as she drove, a circumstance that had already claimed one area fire hydrant, she pulled over.

With our flashlight, the woman was able to find the cicada in a side panel and shoo it away. She then continued down the street in her Mercedes loaner.

Orange juice after blueberry cornbread.

In other news, the world's major media outlets tell me that Baby Jessica has grown up and graduated from high school. Having been seven years old at the time, I feel like I missed the boat. Maybe you do too. Please join me in a rendition of Generation Y's connection to Baby Jessica — We're Sending Our Love Down a Well from Radio Bart.

Hank Stuever, my favorite Washington Post writer, hit another one of the park this week. (I just got home from softball practice.) Style section Stuever examines the legacy of the flip-flop.

Somewhere a television camera crew is always waiting so it can shoot videotape of anonymous people from behind as they walk by, wearing their flip-flops and tank tops and stretchy shorts and eating enormous ice cream cones. The tape will serve as B-roll for the next alarming expose of national obesity rates.

A little Googling turns up as well that Stuever has a Web site, all set up to promote his book arriving in stores this summer, Off Ramp. Despite the promotion, he's still got some of his best stories posted and has some interesting links, including his Slate diary from a couple years ago.

Meanwhile, L.A. Times auto critic Dan Neil is digging in again and setting off to defend the Pulitzer like the castle.

Neil adds book reviewing to his agenda, conparing two new books about the American relationship between roads and billboards. Writes Neil: "By the early 1920s, America's roadsides were tatterdemalions littered with garish billboard advertisements of all description."

Tatterdemalions? Ragamuffins. Points for obscurity there.

His review of Mazda RX-8 further pushes the close-in bounds of my vocabulary. "The 'Rx' is a prescription-strength emetic for anybody in the rear seats when this fervid little coupe is in full thrash mode," Neil writes. Emetic? "An agent that causes vomiting," apparently.

But you know we don't come to Neil for the words. We come for the word-play. Fortunately, he restates later:

Thanks to a compact motor, the hood slopes away for good forward visibility. In the rear seats, however, the visibility is quite limited — so it's hard to lock your eyes on the horizon for vestibular relief. Mazda would probably say the seats are for occasional use. That occasion is hurling.

Bookmarked a while back, Slate contributor Emily Yoffe tries to go 48 hours without talking or writing to communicate. Unlike people who make similar attempts and avoid people, Yoffe actually goes about living her life. The ending's sweet and makes you glad you read about a Human Guinea Pig.

What I hear:

"Him and his men, come in the club like bootypants."

What Lauryn Hill says:

"Him and his men, come in the club like houligans."

Which does make more sense.

One of my favorite Cheers guest roles was Carla's son Ludlow (picture), the un-Tortelli-like product of her brief relationship with a world-famous psychologist. Coming across that episode during this weekend TV Land's marathon, I wondered where the kid actor was today. Apparently, Jarrett Lennon has grown up and made himself a Web site.

I was walking in the door last night and heard this chirping off in the side bushes. The cicadas had quieted down for the night — a sleep that always surprises me; how can the cicadas sleep better than I do? — but the noisemaker didn't sound to be a cricket either. They seemed to have quieted down too, which didn't do much to explain why they were in my basement every early morning this spring. But the almost quiet was okay. I got to thinking about the County Fair song and which was the stranger choice, using crickets as background music or singing about winning big stuffed bears?