And finally we've come to the end of the insanity that's been the first third of 2008. Got back into town Thursday evening, after sneaking onto a slightly earlier flight home from Dallas.

( Drives, Dandelions, and Dinners )

( On To Dallas )

So, with these two trips done, it now looks like I won't be on the road for anything other than a con until late in the summer. Yay!

So far a good conference. The standards committee meetings that were the main reason for my being here were reasonably productive, I think. Nothing too hair-raising, earth-shattering, or spine-chilling. (Corresponding to any developments in wind loads, earthquake loads, or snow loads, respectively...*grin*). Thanks to jet lag, I woke up before the alarm yesterday, so I took a quick stroll along the Seawall. Found a nice pub/steakhouse next to the hotel for dinner last night and chowed down on a prime rib.

There was a reception this evening on the top floor of the Hyatt to kick off the conference. Nice views of downtown and the harbour. Can't say much for the food, which mostly involved either pasta or pork. The conversation was much better. I encountered two former JHU civil engineering grad students whose time overlapped my undergraduate studies. One of them introduced me to a colleague as "the best student I ever had." I managed not to dissolve in laughter. Apparently he managed to forget in the 18 years since I graduated Hopkins that I was at best a C+ student. Also had an interesting conversation with a guy from a company called Flextegrity, that's apparently hawking some sort of scalable, bucky-ball-like system that can be used for everything from walks to walls to (scaled up fully) entire buildings.

After the reception I was still hungry (just having nommed on some cut-up melon & pineapple, and a small piece of overcooked wild salmon), so I strolled down to Gastown. Found an Italian restaurant and had a nice dinner of veal medallions in a wild mushroom sauce. I did get to see the Steam Clock in action.

Arrived safely in Vancouver, with luggage. The Hotel Le Soleil so far seems to be a lovely boutique hotel. I have a suite--sitting room, bathroom, and bedroom. There are bathrobes in the closet, and the wireless is free. I can see the Hyatt (where my conference is) from my room, a very short two-block stroll. I'm betting my room is nicer than my colleagues' rooms over there, and I'm paying less. (Aside to daisy_knotwise & billroper: John Duntemann was on my flight along with another guy from WJE.)

The desk pointed me at an IGA supermarket a few blocks away. Unfortunately they were sold out of Passover stuff for the moment, but I found a fruit salad and a package of Mott's Fruitsations (like applesauce, except this has mango & peach too) that'll do for a snack tonight and breakfast tomorrow (along with the fruit slices and mandel cuts I brought along) until I can get back to the IGA tomorrow.

Surprisingly I'm not completely falling over, considering it's almost 1:30am back East. Maybe it was the brisk stroll to the IGA. But I've got a long day tomorrow, so I should go to bed.

I've been meaning to post for a few weeks a rant about the latest way airlines have decided to soak their passengers. Namely, the concept of charging $25 for a second checked bag. This started with United, and has now spread to US Air, Delta, and apparently now Northwest. Of course, the airlines are claiming this is needed to cover increased fuel costs. Gee, I guess things like doubling the typical economy rate on some of their routes (like the Toronto to DC/Baltimore routes) haven't quite done the job.

( So now I pay for the privilege of them losing my bag? )

Hmm...maybe I should just either buy a Martin Backpacker or take up the bouzouki (as Beth P. says, "In airports it's a banjo!").

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!)

Watchin' the planes fly away...

Yep, here I am back on the road again, this time to an engineering design standards committee meeting in San Francisco. Just a quick post so my readers know I arrived.

The weekend was fun. We saw Jonathan Coulton + Paul & Storm at the Birchmere on Friday. The JoCo/P&S shows appear to be getting to be like Clam Chowder concerts, where the audience plots get stranger and stranger. This particular show featured the tossing of panties onto the stage during the appropriate point in Paul & Storm's "Opening Band", followed by a barrage of stuffed animals during JoCo's encore. (The latter appears to be a running plot related to "Code Monkey"). Much good music was heard, and we saw partiallyclips and scifantasy. Then on Sunday went to Jen & Steve's wedding shower, which was also fun.

After tomorrow's meeting I'll be having dinner with Bill Laubenheimer & Carole Parker (who may or may not be on LJ), then heading down to the Starport.

They say all work and no play makes Jack (or Gary?) a dull boy. So, while I was toiling away at building code hearings, I still found time to enjoy Southern California. For starters, Palm Springs makes a nice venue for a convention; especially compared to previous sites Rochester and Orlando. No offense intended to the residents of either town, but a downtown that mostly closes at 5pm and a resort that's 15 minutes from any food other than its own restaurants limit one's dining options, especially when one only has 30-45 minutes for a meal. Palm Springs, OTOH, has lots of restaurants open all day and late into the evening, and all within a 5 or 10 minute walk from the convention center. So even though many meals were takeout, it was good takeout, including Shakey's Pizza, Mexican, Chinese, and several sandwiches from Sherman's Delicatessen.

( Fun, Friends, Food, and Filk )

Posting (sleepily) from a spacious room at the Hyatt Regency Suites in Palm Springs, CA, where I am on business. Luckily, flying weather was good on Sunday, so had no trouble making my connection in Denver. Had a nice dinner with Lee and Barry last night (having flown to LAX) before heading out to Palm Springs.

Boskone was fun, if abbreviated. We will not discuss my spectacular memory failure during "Come Travel With Me". The rest of my set went fine. As I said last year, I *LOVE* *LOVE* *LOVE* *LOVE* *LOVE* the Quincy (and Revere) rooms. Also enjoyed my stint as Trained Stunt Guitarist in cadhla's set. Never did get around to geeking on Numb3rs, though. Caught three David Weber items (his reading, the Military SF panel, and the Treecats to Tribbles panel).

Home from a trip to Phoenix (out Tuesday evening, back this afternoon). Grueling meeting, at which my colleague and I and the folks we represent were something of a punching bag. But such is the nature of advocacy. Anyway, am thoroughly exhausted and mentally drained. Still, there are things to summarize...

This past weekend was the return of my traditional Birthday housefilk. Good turnout--katrinb, thelongshot and Robbie, starmalachite and stevemb, museinred and stevezeve, dr_zrfq, Dave Wegener from Georgia (on assignment here in DC), and of course myself and the_sheryl. As typical, there was much more chatting than singing, but that's fine since we it was a chance to catch up with folks we don't get to see nearly often enough. Meanwhile, I'm glad to report our Nova-kitty passed her first big test, hanging out with the strange humans, soaking up the love, batting at France's knitting needles. (Luna-tic of course hid. Some things never change...)

Meanwhile, we've had an array of fine dinners. We went over to my Mom's for a Hanukkah dinner last Thursday. Then my dad and Bobbie took us out Sunday evenin for dinner at Golden Bull in Gaithersburg. And on Monday (my actual birthday), Sheryl took me out to the Cheesecake Factory. (Which is why we were a few minutes late for practice). Yes, we had cheesecake, of course...Chocolate Raspberry Truffle. Yum.

Now I get to relax home for a week before we head down to Florida for the holidays. We don't have anything particularly planned except for my Mom taking us out Sunday (one last birthday dinner). Other than that we'll probably just curl up at home with tea, soup, computers and DVDs.

And in my brain dead state, I nearly forgot...while in Phoenix last night, I did get together with blackfeatherdjr. We went over to Tempe and had dinner/dessert/drinks at Gordon Biersch and a brief stroll. An enjoyable night was had.

Since today is the day to be thankful for things, I'll be thankful for friends in many places, and thankful for the ability to travel the country and visit them.

Which brings us to our triumphant return to quartercon, for the first time since 2003.

( Quartered, but not drawn )

So I couldn't resist the ( SF Bay Area Native Test )

Let's start off how we finished the last message...again, L'Shanah Tovah, and may you all be inscribed for a happy, healthy New Year.

Then I have an exceedingly busy week. First the weekend. A Whole bunch of errands to run during the day tomorrow, then we're heading to Arlington for an FSGW-sponsored Oscar Brand concert. Then we'll be making our annual run to the Maryland Renaissance Festival on Sunday. (If anyone else happens to be there, you can usually find us hanging out by the Pyrates or the Rogues.)

Then I get to spend most of next week back in the Pacific NorthWet again. Tacoma specifically, Monday afternoon through Thursday morning. Not a meeting I'm particularly looking forward to this time, probably going to be a contentious one.

Back home just in time for Yom Kippur, assuming NorthWorst doesn't strand me in Bloomington again. Then the Genesis concert on Sunday the 23rd.

Yeah, I'll be an exhausted kitty by the end of it all.

Meanwhile, for my fellow local Pratchett fans, if y'all didn't know already he's on the bill for the National Book Festival on the Mall Saturday the 29th. We're planning on going. He's doing a reading at noon and a signing at 1:00pm. Harry Turtledove, Ken Burns, and Judith Martin (yes, Miss Manners herself) are among the other guests.

And speaking of books, I'll leave you with this link ganked from mdlbear: breathtaking pictures of libraries. Books and architecture--two of my loves in one neat package!

Well, now that we're both home from Seattle for at least a few days, time to get started on a trip report. We flew west on the Friday evening of Labor Day weekend. The journey out was smooth, which probably explains why the shoe dropped on the way *home*. But until that part, the rest of both the pleasure and work parts of the trip were good

( Saturday 9/1 )

( Sunday 9/2 )

That's probably all I'll get to until after the holiday. Shanah Tovah everyone!

Back in Maryland. Got home around 3:00pm this afternoon.

Discerning folks will note that this is not when I was supposed to get home. I was supposed to get home last night. However, a 90-minute equipment delay on the first leg of my trip home insured I spent last night (at NorthWest's expense, thank goodness) in the Radisson Grand Lodge in Bloomington, Minnesota. Ah well. At least I can now say I've seen the Mall of Galaxy America. Mind you, I can't say I've been in the Mall of America yet, but since the hotel was across the parking lot, I did see the Mall of America.

Heading for 3LF shortly. May split after meeting though due to lack of sleep.

We've arrived in Seattle (or at least the Seattle Metro area; our hotel's in Renton). After we acquire breakfast and coffee, we'll make our way downtown to meet up with dan_ad_nauseum and start working down our list of touristy stuff.

Sneaking in a quick update before running out the door to 3LF...fairly quiet and lazy weekend here in Lake Wob...er, Rockville. Sallied forth on Saturday to finally mail in my passport renewal (which expired just *before* FKO--a fact which escaped the notice of both Canadian and US Customs) and to acquire a new lightweight jacket for wetter commuting days. Saturday evening we watched "Shaun of the Dead" on DVD. Much fun, and I was only squicked out once, surprisingly. Interestingly, since I'd finished a disk of '24' on Friday and Sheryl finished a disk on Sunday, this marks the first time since we started on Netflix that we have *no* disks in the house. Sunday I mostly spent either reading "Eifelheim" (on free download) or filing and cleaning stuff up in my study.

Other than that, not much to report. Have recently joined the ranks of those not sleeping well. Need to look into that. It's not life or job, both of which are going well.

Most of this week will be devoted to preparing for our looming trip to Seattle. We'll be spending Labor Day weekend sightseeing (Space Needle, EMP, Pioneer Square, possibly the Aquarium or Zoo, maybe a day trip to Rainier). Then I'll stay on the rest of the week for one of $EMPLOYER's three-times-a-year board meetings. We're quite looking forward to it. As some of you recall I spent two weeks on business in Seattle back in '98, with a side trip to Orycon. I enjoyed the city itself despite the fact the job assignment itself totally sucked. This time, at least, I'll even enjoy the working part of the trip too! 8-)

Just a quick "We're Home" post before I go fall over. Thanks to a delayed flight and wait for luggage we didn't get home from Archon 'til after midnight. Somehow managed to survive today's scheduled-for-two-hour conference call that ran FIVE FREAKING HOURS!?!?!?!

Archon was a blast! Great concerts, some of the best open filking I've ever attended, cool masquerade, Lani Tupu, Bill Corbett & Kevin Murphy, and one amazing moment of serendipity.

Now we actually get to enjoy the comforts of home for the next four weeks (give or take a day or two), until we head off to Seattle for Labor Day weekend and the first week of September.

So I'm gathering up my hotel and airline confirmations for NASFIC as part of packing tonight, whereupon I realize I had us down as checking in on Thursday.

We're flying down tomorrow night.

The reservation has been fixed now.

Well, since I'm sitting here in a suburban Chicago hotel room in the midst of a three-day business trip, with nothing interesting on TV, might as well finally get around to the LiveEarth report.

( A Part of History )

That's about all my brain can remember for now. Apologies to all my Chicago friends I didn't get a chance to look up this time through. Free time was a bit limited on this trip, the one dinner I did have free I wanted to specifically catch up with non-con-going friends I *don't* get to see very often. But don't worry--I'm bound to ramble back through again sometime.

Posting from a hotel room in Dallas where I was today and will be tomorrow for a business meeting.

Big **hugs** to anyone I didn't get to say goodbye to on Sunday because Sheryl and I crashed out right after the wedding. This was partly due to my having to get up at 5:00am to catch the flight down here. That and the filk gods selected me to be this weekend's primary vector for the con crud, which is why I also didn't sing that much. Ah well, still had an enjoyable time anyway, all the concerts and open filks were great.

Hopefully tomorrow's meeting will be *much* more productive than today's.

Part I because I'm sure I'll miss a few, between still being a little sleepy and (obviously) a bit distracted.

Well, despite Air Canada's best efforts to screw up our plans, we had a rockin' time at FKO! The trip started out on an annoying note--a three hour delay due to mechanical problems, followed by a 30 minute wait on the tarmac at YYZ while they tracked down a gate crew, followed by a slight screw-up with our checked guitars. Nothing serious; it's just that instead of doing the intelligent thing of putting them out the oversize chute directly behind our baggage claim they put them in the chute five or six conveyors over from ours. Bottom line, got to the hotel about 2:00am, got into our room, and fell over.

( But on to the highlights. All 16 of them...*grin* )

Well, not quite...28 states, as you'll see if you click through the cut-tag and see my results for the current meme. Somehow appropriate that I would jump on this one right between my just-finished trip to Orlando and next week's three-legger to Salt Lake City and Boston.

( Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map )

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*).

Almost forgot to mention--I was reminded during the latter portions of my business trip of two of the many reasons I love visiting the Bay Area:

1) KFOG!!!! A rock station with actual variety! And real, honest-to-goodness, we're-gonna-play-what-we-feel like variety. Not faux variety like Jack-FM which is still a gimmick of a format, even if it (presumably--haven't really listened to it) beats the all-CSNY-all-the-time classic rock station and the rap-rock/shock jock album rock station here in DC. In just a couple of days, I heard some obscure Bob Dylan (well, obscure to me at least), new Tom Petty, Death Cab For Cutie, and a John Lennon-fest. Hard to find that kind of variety outside of XM/Sirius or Live365.com.

2) Snippets of conversations like:

Jim's son Mark: How was traffic on I-280?
Me: Not bad, except for a mysterious slowdown near the radio telescope.

Most of this post was written during my much-delayed flight home. Talk about insult to injury; a flight scheduled to leave San Francisco at 3:15pm and arrive in Baltimore at 11:16pm gets delayed almost 2-1/2 hours by a medical emergency, two mechanical problems (one on the original plane, one on the plane they changed us to), late-arriving pilots from another flight, and then a line of heavy rains that moved through the area.

(Note I said rain there. I know what some of you are thinking. Insert glyph of middle finger here…)

( Rockin' In The SF Bay )

Now I get a week-and-a-half to enjoy life at home before we head to Florida for the holiday weekend.