Wishing a Very Happy Birthday to my lovely and devoted partner in Nova- and Luna-herding, the_sheryl!!

Back from San Francisco. Actually, got back Saturday night. But didn't get around to posting Sunday and was busy yesterday.

The meetings were long, mind-numbing, and accomplished very little. Luckily, the host organization paid for free wireless in the meeting rooms, so I was able to get some actual work done (or at least keep pace with my work e-mail). They also fed us breakfast and lunch.

But you don't want to hear about the boring details of a standards committee. You want to find out how many filkers and relatives I can manage to see in a 4-day trip. The answer, in this case is many. Of course, it helps that the trip fell across a Wednesday night. So, with the help of a convenient Caltrain station I rode south to Sunnyvale where I had a nice dinner with Bill & Carole, then headed for the Starport to see mdlbear, flower_cat, chaoswolf and the usual Wednesday night gang. Among the folks hanging out were figmo, capplor, the visiting pocketnaomi, and the visiting-from-Israel moshez, who I was delighted to finally meet in person. Also hvideo stopped by with a DVD of chaoswolf and selkit's wedding, so at least I got to see that part of the Consonance festivities.

Thursday I managed to catch up with mysticfig and the rest of Team Bohnhoff for dinner. Yay again for Caltrain! Yay for cities with real mass transit and real commuter rail! I got to see Mystic Fig Studios in all its glory and drool at Jeff's guitar collection. (I did manage to keep the drool off the guitars and the recording gear. Barely.) They took me to an Indian place for another fine dinner.

Friday evening I got together with most of my Bay Area family at my uncle's house in Haight-Ashbury. In addition to Don & Marcia, my aunt & uncle Karen & Jim came up from Santa Cruz (and gave me a ride), and my cousin Talia, her husband Mike and their little one came over from Oakland. Not surprisingly, there was much levity, much cooing at the baby (also much raising of arms and shouting YAAAAY!, which the tyke seemed to enjoy), and yet more good food to be consumed.

Now I actually get to mostly be home for several weeks before the next time I have to play road warrior again. (The exception, of course, if FKO. Definitely not gonna miss FKO!)

Catching up on the rest of last weekend's events other than the acquisition of furballs...it was also my cousin Jeremy's wedding. The "rehearsal dinner" (read these days as "dinner for close family and out-of-town guests") was Saturday night at Teaism in Penn Quarter (near the Verizon Center), and the wedding itself was Sunday evening at Sequoia in Washington Harbour (on the Georgetown waterfront). Of course, it was great to see my aunts and uncles and other relatives on my father's side who I don't get to see very often. I was tapped to be one of the ushers. We wound up sitting at a table with madbodger and Andrea, and Allon Stern and family, since Charlotte (the bride) used to work at the same company as Spam and Allon.

One notable amusement from the evening...somebody (possibly Charlotte) asked the DJ to play "Code Monkey". After the few moments it took for it to sink in *what* song was playing, we rushed onto the dance floor and joined a small circle which included Charlotte and Jeremy's sister Talia and her husband Mike (also a techie).

And yes, someone during the toasts someone did get up and offer the "Mawwiage" speech from Princess Bride.

Winding down a weekend hosting Sheryl's parents for their traditional summer visit. All things considered, a fairly relaxing and quiet weekend (other than Sheryl's dad having the TV on so loud we can hear it over all three floors of the townhouse...) They arrived Friday evening, and we met my mother and her current beau for dinner at nearby Thai restaurant Benjarong.

Saturday was mostly spent lazing around the house. We made an early lunch and supermarket run, followed by a walk around the neighborhood. Sheryl, her dad and I actually racked up about a two-mile stroll (her mom turned back earlier). Later we went to dinner at the Legal Sea Foods at Westfield Montgomery (Montgomery Mall to us old timers). Other than that, I spent the day catching up on newspapers and other miscellaneous stuff.

Today we headed up to Baltimore to visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which was fun. I had been there once before, but that was probably 15 years ago and predated the Aquarium's various expansion(s). We caught the dolphin show (although we sat safely outside the splash zone) and browsed the exhibits. They currently have an exhibit on Australia that is as much birds and reptiles as it is fish, but still interesting.

After the Aquarium we met my father and Bobbie for dinner at Sabatino's in Little Italy. Dinner was excellent, although the portions were sized for an NFL linebacker--either the dinner salad or the entree could have made a full meal in itself. I had enough of my eggplant parmesan & veal left to package up in a doggie bag and bring home for lunch. But I guess we got our money's worth.

That's about it for the weekend. And yes, I know I still owe y'all a full Archon report.

Back from a relaxing holiday weekend in Boynton Beach visiting Sheryl’s parents. Thanks to the combined wonders of a nearby Barnes & Noble hot-spot and free wi-fi at Ft. Lauderdale International, my pants are slightly in debt but not bankrupt. Hope everyone has had a nice holiday weekend and didn’t drink too much eggnog.

( Friends, Family, Florida )

Meanwhile, back at home, quiet week at work, can almost hear crickets in the hallway. Boots is making up for five days of no humans to shed on. Have not figured out what we're doing for New Years' Eve yet (and are certainly open to offers...*wink*).

While all our friends are off at Philcon and Quartercon, we've been hosting the_sheryl's parents for the weekend. We all attended a family bat mitzvah yesterday over in Reston. The ceremony (Minchah, Maariv and Havdalah) was at Congregation Beth Emeth, the reception at the International Country Club nearby. We had an enjoyable evening. I was amused to run into a professional acquaintance at the shindig; his son apparently is a close friend of the bat mitzvah's brother.

We spent a couple of hours at the Jewish Folk Arts Festival, being held at the U of MD continuing ed center about a mile from here. We saw sets from Kol Haruach, Machaya Klezmer Band, and Lox & Vodka. (Some of you will recall L&V as the band that played our wedding). Ran into acrobatty with kidlets in tow. His brother plays for Kol Haruach, and was very happy to see me buy one of their CDs.

In other news, I never got around to mentioning we saw Christine Lavin last weekend, at the Ram's Head Tavern in Annapolis. We picked up the new ONE MEAT BALL CD/cookbook compilation she assembled. No, we haven't listened to it yet, nor tried any of the recipes. Still, looks like a good collection; songs from all the former Babes, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger and others. Yes, of course I joined the Guys. Interesting to note she's updated "Planet X" with the latest developments. Also several other new songs, details of which escape my mind at the moment.

And that's about the news from here. Hope everyone had a fun weekend!