The place where lost socks go...

Thanks to all who responded to the previous entry. The comments were much appreciated. As a side note, I had tried to get last Thursday's seminar postponed by one week, until today, as I knew that we (i.e., the T2K collaboration) would be releasing new results this week. In retrospect, I am rather glad I did not succeed in moving my presentation, as RSD would not have lived long enough to see it. Tis an odd realisation, knowing that in a career spanning decades, my talk was the last physics seminar he ever saw.

That said, Monday's entry was also rather grim. I shall endeavour to correct for that now, by writing a much cheerier accounting of my Thursday morning.

This entry is being written, as so many have before it, from Ye Olde Oxford Tube, as I make my way into London for the "morning" commute. Tis noon, so you could be forgiven for thinking that your friendly neighbourhood Nomad has been having a bit of a lazy day. Not so, however!

This particular Nomad has been awake since half past six and busy as the proverbial bee. Although nothing world-shaking has happened [yet] today, the morning has been filled with various unusual events, some amusing and other rather satisfying. If you read on, dear friends, you will find nothing shocking or vital... but I hope that perhaps you will share some of my good feelings for today.

For ease of reading, I will break each part of the story into a separate chapter, concerning a different topic. Read only the ones that interest you, or read them all! Enjoy!

Haven't played this game in a while, gentle readers. Here goes:

• CHUTE: Am writing this entry on the Oxford Tube, during the trip that never ends. Leaving London after 22:00, we immediately got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the A40. Not exactly what I would expect at that hour. After finally making it through the jam, we seemed to be moving along well... until the motorway (M40) got closed off. So we are now diverting through High Wycombe -- whee! Eventually I will return home. I think.
  
  
• LADDER: Yesterday, I went to Cambridge. There, I presented a high energy physics seminar on the first results from T2K at the Cavendish Laboratory. It went rather well, I think... with some post-talk discussions that may prove rather fruitful in the future. So now I have spoken at both Oxford and Cambridge -- spiffy!
  
  
• CHUTE: I have just learned that one of our darling kitties -- probably The Boy -- has puked all over the bed. Feh. So on my arrival home, after midnight, I will need to strip off the sheets and put clean ones on. Irksome. I love him dearly, but I wish that his walnut-brain were keen enough so that he knew better than to vomit where he sleeps.
  
  
• LADDER: The reason that I am coming back from London so late is that I had a very nice dinner in South Kensington with my high school history teacher. She is one of only three teachers that I actually liked in my high school (and only two of those are still alive). We last saw each other in October 2007, when I dropped in during a visit to NYC. However, she is now living in London for a year and looked me up online. I was rather pleasantly surprised, and it was a lovely evening of chatting and catching up. We have tentative plans for her and her partner to come visit Oxford next month, where I will treat them to one of my now-famous tours.
  
  
• CHUTE: The new Muppets movie -- which comes out next week in the United States -- will not be released in the UK until February! What the...?!? I have no idea why some films are released concurrently in both countries, whilst others have an enormous lag. The latest cinematic adaptation of Jane Eyre, for instance, had a whopping six month delay -- coming out in March for the US and September for the UK. I very much hope that this Muppet movie will still be in the US theatres come late December, because I really don't want to wait three more months!!
  
  
• LADDER: Quite by surprise, I appear to be headed to Berlin in March! Apparently, I am taking a five day holiday with the lovely faerierhona (plus one other). Rather excited about this, as I have not yet been to Germany properly... and Berlin is very much on my list of European cities to visit. As an added bonus, it looks like she has found us a splendid apartment for the trip -- located right on the Ku'damm! Excellent -- couldn't ask for a better location than that!!
  
  
• LADDER: Speaking of plane tickets and March, the ever-exuberant tawneypup and the fabulous jadesfire55 have now purchased their tickets to come visit us in Merry Olde Englande! Huzzah! Looks like there will be much happiness and excitement in Oxford (and beyond) during the last week of March!

Additionally, there is one more ladder. It is a sooper sekrit ladder that I cannot talk about in this space... yet. If things go well, all shall be revealed in time. Stay tuned, true believers!

Yesterday was the first day this year that Oxford received more than eleven hours of daylight. Indeed, to celebrate the occasion, the sun even graced us with his presence! Hooray!

With Spring well and truly on its way, methinks that it may be time to follow my beloved Cheshcat's lead and do a little Spring Cleaning here on Ye Olde El Jay. As she so eloquently put it, I am blessed with many friends... but not nearly enough time to read what all of them have to say. It has been nearly a year since my last culling of the list and, in that time, it is burgeoned to nearly two hundred members. Alas, this is more than I can keep up with![*]

As such, I shall be trimming my list in the near future, probably about a week or so from now. Anyone with whom I have had any sort of contact in the past three months will be kept. So if you've left me a comment, dropped me an e-mail, rung me up for a chat, or paid me a visit at the Event Horizon or Chiron Beta Prime, or offered me a visit when I was Stateside for the holidays, you need not be concerned about the slimming down. Your name shall be kept, gentle reader! There are, however, many wonderful people that I have only met once that will likely be trimmed. Some of them are folks that I cannot even match up real person with LJ name. I have met all in real life -- that is one of my LJ policies -- but we have not interacted since. To those of you, I mean you no ill will and would love to see you again. I will look forward to the time when our paths cross once more! Alternatively, if you are reading quietly and would like to stick around, just leave a comment here to let me know!

Meanwhile, I am riding home on Ye Olde Oxford Tube after a long, but good, day. This morning, I set a new record for my inbound commute -- one hour and twenty-eight minutes.[**] Not bad! It helped that the coach arrived at the stop at the same time that I did. The evening wait was quite nice as well; the coach pulled into view as I reached my stop and then arrived about a minute later. Ironically, I had the same bus driver for both directions; not sure that has happened in one day before! Looks like I caught him on his first trip to London this morning and his last return to Oxford just now. Still, I went in at 11:13 this morning and returned again at 21:43, so that is rather a long day for him, too!

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[*] Honestly, I cannot understand how some people can keep up with their e-mail, LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter, Dreamwidth, MySpace, and so forth. Just the first two on this list leave me eternally falling behind!

[**] Thus beating the previous record by one single minute! That record was set on December 16th 2008, very soon after I started doing this commute.

Good evening, gentle readers!

I write this entry from the Oxford Tube, as it slowly seeps through the morass of traffic that is the A40. Said traffic jam provides the perfect excuse for writing an entry that has been percolating in my head for quite some time.

March is nearly upon us. The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer. Spring is starting to, um, spring! This Dark Period has been rather productive, with progress in several areas -- not least is my impending application for settlement in the UK. As the Dark receeds, however, it becomes time to venture forth once more and seek out new adventures and excitement! My beloved cheshcat and I have our first road trip of the year coming up this weekend, with several more explorations to follow in short order. The outward looking outlook of the Light also means that it is time to start planning more social activities. And that is precisely what this post is all about!

There are a few events coming up that may be of interest to the UK-based portion of my f-list. Take a look below and see if any of these suit your fancy, dear friends:

March: Party time! My birthday -- which falls on March 13^th this year -- is a mere three weeks away. Having had two most excellent birthday parties last year, though, I am planning a three day road trip with my beloved cheshcat and the lovely miss_amaranth to celebrate this year. Besides, there is a better reason to party just one week later: The terrric tawneypup is coming to town! After nearly two years, my lovable lass is returning to Merry Olde England, much to the delight of cheshcat and myself. Any time that we get to spend with her is a sheer delight, and the last time she popped across the pond we all had quite a blast! Most of my UK people have not had the pleasure of meeting dear Tawney... so we will be throwing a party in her honour. If you are on my LJ f-list, you can consider yourself invited!

March 19^th at Chiron Beta Prime. Be there!

May: As the Royal Wedding will be giving many of us an eleven day holiday from April 22^nd to May 2^nd, there will be no big social events organised by us in April. cheshcat and I are planning a nice long road trip to the continent to get away from it all. Not quite sure which places we plan to visit just yet. Berlin, Prague, and Vienna are just some of the places on our list.

In May, however, there is much niftiness to be had. Regular readers of this journal may recall that, back in October, the Kiddo and I went to see Roger Waters perform The Wall live at Madison Square Garden. What an absolutely amazing concert that was -- one of the best that I have ever been to! Puppets, flying pigs, amazing animations... and, of course, the building and destruction of the wall itself! If you like, check out a fan-recorded clip of the show here!

The US tour of The Wall has now finished... but the European tour is just about to begin! As it turns out, I happen to have two tickets to see the May 15^th performance at the Venue Formerly Known as the Millennium Dome in London. The seats are not as good as the fantastic ones that the Kiddo and I enjoyed at MSG, but they are not bad. My person that I originally wanted to take to this show when it was announced last year is no longer available. cheshcat then had right of first refusal; she did, indeed, exercise that right quite well, having refused to go several times now. Pink Floyd is not exactly something that we agree on. Thus, I have an additional ticket. If you think you might like to go to the show, drop me an e-mail and we can talk.

June: In June, Bisexual Oxford brings you the second annual Oxford BiFest! We will be returning to the same great venue as last year, the Oxford University Club. There, from 11am to 11pm, there will be twelve awesometacular hours of workshops, social events, and pure unadulterated fun! (Okay, we will let adults in, too)

Check out the Oxford BiFest webpage here... and stay tuned for the announcement of workshops and other programming!


I have to say: 2011 has been off to a fantastic start already. Now, with the warmth and the daylight coming, things are only going to get better! Wahoo! Fasten your seatbelts, good souls, the ride is just about to begin!

Looks like the Oxford Tube must have done something to really torque off the Bus Gods, as its karma has been quite hellacious today!

This morning, I had planned to get out the door by ten o'clock to make my way into London. Didn't happen, as a number of errands got in the way. I ended up at the bus stop by about twenty past eleven, feeling somewhat guilty about the late start to my workday. Turns out, I did the right thing. There was a large crowd of people waiting at the bus stop. The bus came ten minutes later, at half eleven... but one of the women waiting told me that she had been there since ten o'clock! Much better to have a productive hour and change getting things done, rather than sitting at the bus stop. Still, I have never seen such a delay in the morning! I chalked it up to the current heat wave, and I believe that at least one of the buses overheated.

So I dodged a bullet this morning -- go me, yes? Fast forward to this evening.

After working with a student at Queen Mary University of London today, I started to head home around half seven. I rang cheshcat to let her know that I would be back in Oxford around half nine. Wishful thinking! Maybe this would be reasonable on some other day... but not today!

I arrived at the coach stop at eight o'clock. As I was approaching, I saw an Oxford Tube zip by. Bugger! If I had been about a minute earlier, I would have been on it! Oh, well. This is not an unknown occurrence, and the next coach is usually ten to fifteen minutes behind. I had Glittering Images in my bag, so I opened it up and started reading.

Around half eight, I noticed that I had been waiting quite some time.

By nine o'clock, quite a large crowd had gathered.

At half nine, an Oxford Tube came into sight... and zipped on by, with SORRY, COACH FULL displayed in lights on the front. I had sated myself with reading, so I started chatting with some of the other people who were waiting.

Eventually, at 9:50, another coach arrived with space for passengers. An hour and fifty minutes?? This was, by far, a record for how long I have had to wait to get on a coach to or from Oxford!

By this time, about thirty people were waiting to get on board; it was almost certain that the coach would not have room for us all. As the person who had been waiting the longest, I pushed my way to the front of the queue to get on first. Furthermore, as the first person at the bus stop, I recognised the people who had arrived soon after, who had been waiting nearly as long as me. I pointed at one bloke in a green shirt and announced that he was getting on next, after me, and then at a couple who I said were third and fourth. Beyond that, I didn't track who had arrived when, so I left the rest of the crowd to fend for themselves. But I wasn't going to let those of us who waited nearly two hours be denied a seat whilst a latecomer hopped on. As they passed by me to find their seats, the couple I had designated as #3 and #4 thanked me for my effort on their behalf.

Due to the angering of the Bus Gods, I am not quite home yet... even though it is nearly eleven o'clock at night. I am still a'riding on the Oxford Tube. When I get in to the Flat With No Name, I expect that cheshcat will be asleep -- she has a big day tomorrow. My plan is to eat dinner, then hop into bed; I need to be on the coach back to London around eight, as I have a meeting at ten tomorrow morning. Oi!

Despite the delay -- and I am not a man known for my patience -- I am in reasonably good spirits. I reminded myself of how much I enjoy reading outside in the Summer evening air. Instead of my patio in Oxford, it was a bus stop in London... but I still got to read outside as the sun went down. Although I will not do much at home tonight, I am not missing any evening plans, either. If I had theatre tickets or bell ringing or some other extra-curricular activity that I missed due to the late bus, I would likely be seething. Luckily, though, there were no special plans for tonight -- as there were for both yesterday and tomorrow -- so I am not missing out on anything from the long wait.

Getting close to home now. It will be good to get there, greet the shark, and pet my kitties. Dinner will be quite welcome, too...

Hadn't planned to write another entry today, but this is too good to miss. It really bookends my day.

I am writing this entry from Ye Olde Oxford Tube, heading out of London. No bus racing this evening... particularly since, after dark, I cannot cut through Kensington Gardens so I wait at the very last London stop. If I miss the coach there, there's no place to race to.

I did have to wait for the coach to arrive, which never sits well with my impatient self. After all, there are always better things that I could be doing than waiting for a bus! When the coach did come, however, the driver greeted me with a smile and said: "Glad to see that you're still alive! Did you have a good day?" Turns out, he was the same guy who warned me to be careful this morning!

This came as a bit of a surprise to me. After all, he picked me up in Oxford a little before nine o'clock this morning... which means that he must have left Gloucester Green -- Oxford's central bus station -- at about half eight. He then picked me up this evening at seven forty... which means that he won't be back at Gloucester Green until about half nine. That's a long day! From what I understand, a typical day for the Oxford Tube drivers is two round trips to London. He must be on his third!

In any case, it was an amusing way to end what was a reasonably productive workday!

Ended up doing another short bicycle versus bus race this morning, as the Oxford Tube was already between me and my stop when I left my flat. I'm not sure why, in recent days, I keep coming in so close to the coach that I have to race. This time, however, I ended up making it to my usual stop before the bus, so no need to chase it on to the next one[*].

Ensuring that I beat the bus to the stop did require a bit of weaving about through different traffic lanes... though I did not have to run any stoplights (this time). When the driver pulled into the stop, he hopped out of the bus to unlock the luggage compartment where I store my cycle during the journey. The first words out of his mouth to me?

You have to be more careful riding that bike! You could get killed!

I assured him that I don't normally ride so recklessly, that I only did it to make sure that he didn't miss me. He was, however, unswayed... insisting that it did me no good if I got killed in the process.

Perhaps I am just deranged, but this amused me a great deal[**]. Maybe because it was actually quite sweet to see that the bus driver cared about my health and safety? Maybe because I only learned to ride a bicycle at the age of twenty-nine and didn't ride in real traffic until less than two years ago -- thus, being skilled and confident enough to ride recklessly[***] is a milestone? Maybe just adrenaline pumping from having successfully raced the bus, mixed with relief that I didn't have to chase it to the next stop yet again? Maybe some combination of all these reasons?

Ah, the world may never know... but sitting here on the bus into London, I am still grinning!

---

[*] Ergo, no increase in the official Nomad vs. Bus score.

[**] Indeed, enough to enshrine it for posterity in a LiveJournal post!

[***] At least in Oxford. Whilst cycling in London, I am significantly more nervous and careful.

This morning's commute was the thirty-eighth time that I did the Oxford-to-London trip since I started working at Imperial College. And it was, by a good margin, the best commute that I have had. The total time, door-to-door, from stepping out of my flat to walking into my office? One hour and twenty-nine minutes!

No waiting for the coach -- it passed by as I cycled away from my building and I caught up with it at the next stop light. No traffic -- I left home quite late, at 10:21am, so the morning rush was over. Four minutes from out the door until I was on the coach and able to use the internet, eleven minutes when I got off the coach to unload my bike, cycle across Kensington Gardens, lock it up, and walk up to my office. Very nice, indeed!

After moving to the new flat, I started a spreadsheet to log my "standard morning commute."[**] There are sixteen entries on it so far. Not only is this the shortest time, but it single-handedly[***] lowered the average by two minutes![****]

The only possible downside to this morning is that I know the commute time can never get any lower than this. Absolutely everything went right this morning, including hitting all the green lights when cycling from the bus stop to my office. So I now know the minimum time that this trip will take -- it can never get any better than it was today.[*****]

As an added bonus, I got a smile when I pealed a clementine to eat on the coach, then looked to my right to realise that the woman across the aisle had done precisely the same thing at the same time!

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[*] At this job.

[**] The evening commute is harder to standardise, as I sometimes come home, sometimes go to the ice rink, and sometimes go to ring bells.

[***] Metaphoric hands, as commutes have hands in much the same way that pupdetz have ears.

[****] Currently, the average for my door-to-door morning commute is two hours and two minutes.

[*****] Without moving to a new location or sleeping at a friend's place in London.

Random The First:Watching the sunrise over the [fairly flat] horizon as I type this. Woke up extra-early this morning[1], attempting to catch the express version of the Oxford Tube. There are only three each morning and I was shooting for the latest, but it looks like I might have missed it by a couple of minutes. In any case, the first coach after the last express bus of the day is not a bad place to be, as it is quite sparsely populated. I highly suspect that the express bus would have been much more crowded. In any case, I get to see all of today's sunlight -- the skies are clear and I have been awake since thirty-one minutes before the dawn[2]. I am very much not a morning person, but I do like sunlight. Given that it is in such short supply at this time of year, I will take the full eight hours thirty five minutes (and forty one seconds) of today's light as a silver lining for being awake so early.

Random The Second: I have a lion-butt coin! Which is to say, I received as change one of the new 20p coins yesterday. The term "lion-butt coin" originates from the lovely bammba_m, based on a comment that she made here. Not counting the full set of uncirculated new coins that I purchased from the Royal Mint, I now have a new version of the 5p coin (July), as well as the 1p and 2p coins (August). From 2008, I also have old versions of the 1p, 2p, 5p, and 10p coins. I find the way that the Royal Mint begins circulating coins to be odd. I always check my change for interesting (to me) coins. Even so, it is now late November and I have not yet found old-style 2008 coins for 20p, 50p, £1 and £2 denominations. Similarly, I have not yet received the new-style coins for 10p, 50p, £1 and £2.[3] Rather than add this lion-butt coin to my collection, however, I will be bringing it Stateside next month to give to bammba_m. It is the least that I can do, really, to show my appreciation.

Random The Third: As of right now, there have been five comments on my previous entry about ice skating. That's cool. What caught my attention, though, is that they are all from women. Now this may simply be pure chance -- the statistics are far too low to conclude anything. It is also possible that this is because I have more women than men on my f-list[4]. Still, I have noticed that ice skating seems to appeal much more to people with two "X" chromosomes. I am currently in my fifth term taking lessons at the ice rink. Usually we have six to sixteen people in a class each term. Only once was there a single other "Y" chromosome in the class[5], back in my second term (taking Level Three and Level Four at once). Also, I believe that he was there mainly to be with his partner; she left halfway through the course and, although he did finish the term, he did not return for the next one. I don't quite understand why there seems to be such a gender slant in ice skating; it is not at all intuitive to me. Still, observationally speaking, it does seem to be there. Perhaps I don't comprehend it because I really am not very well attuned to gender stereotypes.[6]

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[1] Seven oh two, leaving the house at seven thirteen.

[2] Which is at 7:33am in Oxford today.

[3] Although I did see somebody else behind me in a queue with a new 50p coin.

[4] Checking my list of mutual friends now, and ignoring duplicate journals from the same person plus -- for the sake of this quick scan -- people who do not self-identify as either of the traditional two genders, I see eighty-two women and fifty-one men. That's about 5/8 women and 3/8 men.

[5] Not counting the twelve year old vunderkind who passed through our class last term. Although he does have a "Y" chromosome, I choose not to count him. Not because of his age, but because he really didn't stay in our class. In week one of the term, he was in Level One. By week two, he had joined our Level Six class. He stayed there for another week or two before the bumped him up to Level Seven. By the end of the six week term, he was in the Level Nine course. I don't see him as having been in our class so much as "passing through."

[6] I had a conversation not long ago with somebody who disagreed with me on this, citing my career in a field that is mostly male and several of my hobbies (e.g., comic book collecting) as evidence. I am not convinced, however. To me, disregarding gender stereotypes is not about shunning all activities that tend to be biased in population in favour of my gender. Nor is it about actively seeking out activities because they are favoured by the other gender. It is about doing what I want to do -- regardless of gender. There are male stereotypes that I do not fit -- I hate watching sport(s) of any kind, I cry, et cetera. There are female stereotypes that I do not fit -- I loathe shopping... and the colour pink! Similarly, there are both "male activities" and "female activities" that I enjoy. What I have a hard time understanding is why some of these activities end up containing a sizable gender split. Indeed, the gender asymmetry in ice skating, from what I have seen, is far greater than it is in particle physics!

The past thirty-six hours -- from Monday evening until this morning -- have been really good! There hasn't been any one single Major Good Thing... but there have been loads of little things conspiring to put me in an excellent mood!

It started with quite a nice ice skating lesson on Monday evening. I had a couple of breakthrough moments where various and sundry maneuvers seemed to click into place. I still can't reliably do an inside three-turn[*], but my backwards crossovers are looking good and my continuous curves -- both inside and outside edge -- are nice, too!

After skating on Monday, I had a lovely phone date with the even lovelier tawneypup! It is always good to hear her voice... and it will be even better to see here again next month! It was also a good way to end my evening; after getting off the phone, I collapsed into bed with cheshcat.

Tuesday began with the perfect commute, as I wrote about yesterday... and the day just got better from there. Apparently, I was right about the perfect commute being a good omen![**] For one thing, the weather was clear and sunny -- at this time of year, I will take all the daylight that I can get! Also, over the course of Tuesday, I received word of various and sundry bits of good news -- much of it I cannot repeat in the public domain -- which left me feeling bouncy and happy. Indeed, the bouncy happiness threatened to bubble over... so I went up to the level eight terrace and had a phone chat with Darelle so that I could bounce at her from the roof for a bit!

Tuesday evening was bell ringing practice with the OUSCR at Mary Mag. The return commute was nearly as smooth as the morning's -- only a three minute wait for the Oxford Tube -- and the ringing was quite nice. In particular, I fell into a groove whilst ringing the treble to St. Simons Triples and was ringing impressively well (for me)! These days, I am working on improving my ropesight and my listening skills. Also my bell handling, so that I can make more natural distinctions between a slow stroke, a steady stroke, and a quick stroke.

When practice ended, I picked up noodles for cheshcat and I for dinner, then met her at Skullcrusher Mountain. We ate, then removed the last bits of our things from the old flat. With all of our stuff gone, the last task was to get the kitties moved. We had left them to the end, visiting daily with food when we came to pack. The idea -- which seems to have worked -- was to set the new place up reasonably well before unleashing them to destroy it! Before moving the kitties, we bathed them. We do this once or twice a year with our cats, using baby shampoo with conditioner to clean them up. So long as you start them on it young, they tolerate it. They never like it... but they tolerate it. For Giles, who was six months old yesterday, this was his first bath ever! He squirms like a wild thing when we so much as try to clip his claws... so both Chesh and I had anticipated the bath as being quite a challenge. Giles surprised us by taking it remarkably well -- mainly he just went limp and let us get on with it! Good kitty!

Once Giles and The Boy were clean, we put them in the car and left Skullcrusher Mountain. We need to return for cleaning and to do a farewell ritual for the space... but we are now officially moved out! Nice! Indeed, this has been one of the easiest moves I have ever done[***]. We did it all in eleven days, all by ourselves[****] and using only my Red Rover for transport. The new place is not fully set up set... but by spreading the packing over eleven days, we have had time to get a good fraction of our things into place as we went along.[*****]

The poor kitties didn't quite know what hit them! First, Mommy and Daddy take away all the things that they are used to! And go away each night! Then they get shoved into water!! And put in a carrier!! In the car!!! Then taken to a strange place!!!! Poor The Boy, he was very clingy and vocal as he explored the new place -- I made sure to lavish tonnes of attention on him! Giles, being a kitten, was less traumatised and happily explored his new home. Even though it was late, cheshcat and I stayed up with them for some time, helping to acclimate them.

Finally, Chesh fell into bed and I hopped into the shower to wash the yuck of the old flat off of me. Then a "quick" hop online to check for mail from one or two certain someones... and into bed myself!

All in all, quite a nice day and a half!

The one downside to it all has been that, amongst all the activity of the past few days, I really have not enjoyed a full night's sleep since Saturday! I will endeavour to rectify this tonight. This evening, cheshcat and I have theatre plans at the Oxford Playhouse. I don't know what show we are seeing yet -- this is the second-to-last of the "surprise theatre" tickets that she bought back in August -- but their shows usually let out shortly after ten pm. With any luck, I can grab a quick dinner and be in bed by shortly after eleven o'clock, thus luxuriating in the luxury of eight hours rest!

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[*] But that's okay as the term is only half over. I have three more weeks to learn how!

[**] Certain good wishes from certain special people probably didn't hurt with this, either!

[***] Not counting those rare times that we have had professional movers, like when I moved from Arizona to Chicago to start work at Fermilab and the lab paid for the relocation costs.

[****] I believe that this alone is a first!

[*****] We were also able to re-use boxes after unpacking them, which is a nice eco-bonus!