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After winning the GO game yesterday afternoon, I drove downstate to the Bloomington-Normal area to visit The Kiddo[*]. He completed his Masters degree in May and, thus, will be leaving Normal next month to begin working for Google. Therefore, yesterday's trip was most likely my last visit to that area.
When I arrived, we went to get lunch in town. Then we picked up The Kiddo's girlfriend and went to play miniature golf. I won, with the low score of 54 points. He came in second with 59, then his girlfriend came in last -- despite a very strong start -- with 63. This is revenge for the game we played last summer, when The Kiddo won handedly. The agreement was that the loser had to buy ice cream for the winner, so I enjoyed the spoils of mini-golf as the sun went down. Then it was off to the bowling alley. We played three games; my scores were 145, 196, and 139. I was particularly impressed with my second game, as I marked in every frame -- twice in the tenth. Not sure if I have ever done that before; if so, it has certainly been a long time. I did, however, slip once and through my first gutter ball in years. Although I made the spare to close the frame, it still cost me the chance to break 200 for the first time in a very long time.
After the bowling alley closed, we dropped his girlfriend off and The Kiddo and I went back to his apartment for a few hours. Somehow in that time, we ended up reminiscing about an obscure cartoon that we used to watch, over twenty years ago, called Kidd Video. This cartoon was so unknown that, some time ago, we began to wonder if we had imagined it. Although I have the whole second season on video tape [somewhere], we found some episodes on-line and watched a couple of them.
At about 3am, I left to drive home. This was probably a mistake. Within twenty minutes, the skies opened up and I was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. Eventually, I pulled into a rest area to nap while the storm raged. The net effect of this was that I did not get back to the Event Horizon until 7:30am. I promptly collapsed into bed and did not rise until noon.
This afternoon, I paid a visit to my old place of employment, Fermilab. It was my first time there since October, and it was good to see people again. I had several nice chats, especially with JHY -- who I have known since 2000, when we were graduate students together on Super-Kamiokande. I also got a tour of an interesting experiment that an old colleague is now running. Besides enjoying these visits, there is also professional networking value in returning to the lab.
In the evening, I joined![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crim_ferret and unclevlad and datahawk and wyldekyttin[**] for dinner in Naperville. The food -- a pick-your-own stir fry -- was very good and very different from my usual fare in England. Even better, though, was the conversation. During the meal, another storm broke loose. This merited several breaks from the dinner table to stand outside and admire its fury more closely. When dinner was over, we returned to their house to continue enjoying the good company.
Now I am home once again, and about to collapse into bed once more.resourceress will be flying here in the morning, and I am ever so excited to be seeing here again for the first time since January! Not that the vacation has been substandard thus far, but I think that the rest of this week shall be much fun!
[*] For those who do not know, The Kiddo has been my nickname for my brother since long before LiveJournal existed.
[**] And one other member of their tribe whose LJ name I do not remember.
When I arrived, we went to get lunch in town. Then we picked up The Kiddo's girlfriend and went to play miniature golf. I won, with the low score of 54 points. He came in second with 59, then his girlfriend came in last -- despite a very strong start -- with 63. This is revenge for the game we played last summer, when The Kiddo won handedly. The agreement was that the loser had to buy ice cream for the winner, so I enjoyed the spoils of mini-golf as the sun went down. Then it was off to the bowling alley. We played three games; my scores were 145, 196, and 139. I was particularly impressed with my second game, as I marked in every frame -- twice in the tenth. Not sure if I have ever done that before; if so, it has certainly been a long time. I did, however, slip once and through my first gutter ball in years. Although I made the spare to close the frame, it still cost me the chance to break 200 for the first time in a very long time.
After the bowling alley closed, we dropped his girlfriend off and The Kiddo and I went back to his apartment for a few hours. Somehow in that time, we ended up reminiscing about an obscure cartoon that we used to watch, over twenty years ago, called Kidd Video. This cartoon was so unknown that, some time ago, we began to wonder if we had imagined it. Although I have the whole second season on video tape [somewhere], we found some episodes on-line and watched a couple of them.
At about 3am, I left to drive home. This was probably a mistake. Within twenty minutes, the skies opened up and I was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. Eventually, I pulled into a rest area to nap while the storm raged. The net effect of this was that I did not get back to the Event Horizon until 7:30am. I promptly collapsed into bed and did not rise until noon.
This afternoon, I paid a visit to my old place of employment, Fermilab. It was my first time there since October, and it was good to see people again. I had several nice chats, especially with JHY -- who I have known since 2000, when we were graduate students together on Super-Kamiokande. I also got a tour of an interesting experiment that an old colleague is now running. Besides enjoying these visits, there is also professional networking value in returning to the lab.
In the evening, I joined
crim_ferret and unclevlad and datahawk and wyldekyttin[**] for dinner in Naperville. The food -- a pick-your-own stir fry -- was very good and very different from my usual fare in England. Even better, though, was the conversation. During the meal, another storm broke loose. This merited several breaks from the dinner table to stand outside and admire its fury more closely. When dinner was over, we returned to their house to continue enjoying the good company.Now I am home once again, and about to collapse into bed once more.
resourceress will be flying here in the morning, and I am ever so excited to be seeing here again for the first time since January! Not that the vacation has been substandard thus far, but I think that the rest of this week shall be much fun![*] For those who do not know, The Kiddo has been my nickname for my brother since long before LiveJournal existed.
[**] And one other member of their tribe whose LJ name I do not remember.
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