The place where lost socks go...

Holy macaroni -- this place is so empty! I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; after all the hard work of the past two weeks -- and especially the past three days -- it would be discouraging if the Event Horizon wasn't empty! Even so, the sound of my voice echoing off the bare walls is still a bit disconcerting. Stumpy and Chirp keep following me around -- they are both very confused and don't know where everything went!

A final post about the end of the Event Horizon is forthcoming. For now, however, I need to make ready for travel. About twelve hours from now, your friendly neighbourhood Nomad will be touching down at Heathrow... and in about fourteen hours, I should be back in Oxford at my remaining home: Chiron Beta Prime.

Um, Universe? WTF? Seriously??

Saying that this month is over-committed would be a strong candidate for the Understatement of the Year Award. Besides flying between three continents and being a member of the Sooper Sekrit Festival organizing team, I have had a lovely visit from the wonderful tawneypup, thrown a spectacular farewell party for the Event Horizon, and am busy sorting through all of my worldly possessions as we close down the house. All whilst trying to keep from falling behind on my physics work and while applying for the new job openings in the current academic cycle. And some other stuff (e.g., see tomorrow's LJ entry).

Apparently, however, the Universe doesn't think that I am being kept busy enough. Since life obviously was not sufficiently interesting, said Universe threw this at me:



Why, yes, that is a very large stick that came crashing down through the roof of my garage. Funny you should ask!

On Saturday afternoon, gyades put his car into our garage, making room for the annual High-Stakes Four Square match at the Event Horizon party. On Sunday afternoon, he went to retrieve his car... only to find that said very large stick had narrowly missed impaling his lovely blue Prius. Quoth gyades: "I am damn lucky!"

Heading outside to see what he was talking about, I made the acquaintance of the aforementioned very large stick. Whilst being conscious that gyades was indeed damn lucky to remain in possession of an unimpaled car, I was also aware that there was now a sizable hole in the roof of our lovely two-car garage. Quoth Nomad: "Fuck!"

Ah, the joys of home ownership!

Here is another view of that very large stick, along with the accompanying hole:



Seriously: WTF, Universe??!

Presumably, the heavy rain on Sunday morning, whilst eight of us were enjoying a post-party breakfast at Butterfield's, dislodged the very large stick in question. It must have fallen a fair distance to have (a) landed with one end down, and (b) acquired sufficient momentum to punch a hole through our garage roof.

Nine years have I lived at the Event Horizon. For the past six, I have only been physically present for a few weeks each year. Yet somehow the Universe chooses now -- when we are here with but nine days left before being fully moved out -- to spear my garage with a very large stick. Thanks, Universe! Wouldn't want to think you forgot me or anything!

Once more, with feeling, I present a final view -- from outside -- of that same very large stick. The painted-on red circle is added by your friendly neighbourhood Nomad, to distinguish the subtle yet very large stick from the background. Please to observe it as it protrudes from our roof:



Honestly? I know that I should be annoyed about this... but it is just too absurd for me to get angry. In reality, every time I think about that very large stick, I incline towards laughter; the whole thing is more ridiculous than anything else!

Writing this entry from the Event Horizon! Ah, tis always good to be back! Stumpy has already come out to greet me (and demand the requisite petting), though Chirp is invisible thus far. Perhaps she knows that I'm bringing her to the vet for dental work tomorrow morning?

There's quite a week ahead of me, with both work and play to enjoy. I hit the ground running, as the lovely danaeris will be here in about an hour. After grabbing a bite together, we are off into the city for Poly Karaoke. Looks to be a fun evening to get me started; the work part begins tomorrow morning.

And on Saturday? BIRTHDAY PARTY! Wahoo!!

Greetings, gentle readers! Your friendly neigbourhood Nomad has been a bad, bad blogger. Very little about the past month has been written in these pages. Tsk tsk! Thus, the occasional "Week In Review" post has temporarily been upgraded to a "Month In Review". Here are the highlights of the past month... or at least those that I can remember at the moment!

• P**T***: The Sooper Sekrit October Pagan Festival went very well, as it usually does. This year was particularly poignant, as it is the last time that we will be in buildings that have been our home for over twenty years now (and for all of the fifteen years that I have been attending). Also, my beloved cheshcat and I seem to have found ourselves running P**T*** 2012. Ooops. This time, it will be as part of a team of seven experienced organizers, rather than on our own, that were elected to guide the community through its transition year.
  
  
• US tour: After coming to the States for P**T***, we stayed for nearly two weeks. This gave cheshcat and I the opportunity to do lots of nifty things! Whilst in New York City, we went to see a fantastic piece of experimental theatre called Sleep No More, recommended by the lovely jeneralist. SNM is loosely based on MacBeth and set in a six story hotel; guests don spectral masks and wander freely through the rooms as the action goes on around them. Later, cheshcat and I made the journey back to Chicagoland; I drove and she read Sense and Sensibility to me. She reads rather well, adopting different voices for each character. In this way, we finished almost the entire book. Back at the Event Horizon, we spent some excellent time with the grand gyades. We also had a wonderful visit from the wonderful tawneypup. Together, the three of us enjoyed breakfasts at the ever-delicious Butterfield's; we explored the Morton Arboretum in all its autumn glory (including a wonderful art exhibit of a glass pumpkin patch!); and we played many games. The Event Horizon Halloween party was also a huge success, as I wrote about in a previous entry.
  
  
• Theatre: Besides the rather spectacular Sleep No More, my darling cheshcat and I have been to several shows in the past month. The Oxford Playhouse is on a particularly good role, with a nifty student production of The Picture of Dorian Grey, an excellent new show called Family Business, and the thought-provoking Earthquakes In London. Perhaps best of all, however, was a trip to Milton Keynes last week, where we saw Slava's Snowshow. What an absolute delight! Pure, unadulterated joy! Seriously!! If anyone gets the chance to see this, please treat yourself! The entire show is amazing... but the ending alone makes it worth going!
  
  
• Samhain: This year, my Samhain was nice... but not terribly intense. I cannot pretend to be surprised -- it seems normal that when one Samhain is very highly charged, the following year is much more mellow. For instance, Samhain 2006 was extremely intense... and 2007 barely felt like Samhain. Similarly, Samhain 2010 was very powerful, with many rituals to cut cords and burn away baggage... culminating in my first salt circle. In contrast, this year Samhain was relatively quiet. Our coven of five performed our traditional ancestor rituals of the feast and the toast, thus completing another Wheel of the Year. I am very pleased to say that, once again, we managed to WORK all the sabbats during the cycle that just ended. I am even more pleased to say that the year which has now passed was a very good year in many ways -- cheshcat and I received our indefinite leave to remain in the UK, no relationships ended and the existing ones grew stronger, I travelled to a couple of new countries and explored more of Great Britain. Definitely a much better year than the one that came before, which was rife with drama, tension, and strife.
  
  Probably the most important part of this Samhain was a ritual that I ran for somebody else. I was pleased to serve as HP for doing such vital work.
  
  
• Work: Lots going on right now. Fiducial volume optimization with one of my graduate students; particle interaction studies on neutrino-induced charged current positive single pion interactions; professional seminars and outreach talks; you name it!
  
  
• Misc: After being on a de facto hiatus from bell ringing over the Summer, due to travel, I am back to regular ringing at least once per week. That is very good for me. Gaming sessions have also happened a couple of times since my return to the City of Dreaming Spires. Oh, and I met Eric Drexler at a Halloween party last week; we spent some time chatting about supernova and neutrinos as well as projects that fall in the gap between physics and engineering. He is giving a lecture on nanotechnology tomorrow afternoon, which I am very much looking forward to attending.

On that note, gentle readers, I must end this entry. For I am writing from Ye Olde Oxford Tube once again... and we are very nearly home! Have a lovely evening, dear friends!

Just returned to the Event Horizon, with the lovely tawneypup in tow.[*] Tis good to be home... and nice to start the new year (and decade) by coming to my own house.

The New Year's Eve at tawneypup and plasmonicgrid's house was gangs of fun! I learned a nifty new party game called Bag of Nouns that I am eager to import to Merry Olde England; I saw plenty of spiffy people (there were fourteen of us there in total); and there was a plethora of good food, good company... plus malts at midnight! Cameo "appearances" were made -- via telephone -- by my beloved cheshcat, the beautiful bunnypip, and the charming miss_amaranth at midnight GMT... then again at midnight EST. Around half five in the morning, we finally collapsed into bed to get our first sleep of 2010!

The New Year partying continues tomorrow, here in Chicagoland! Gentle readers, please come on over to the Event Horizon at or after 13:00 tomorrow for an afternoon of gaming goodness. If we reach a critical mass, the notorious Bag of Nouns may also be inflicted introduced here, too! At night, we will be heading into the city to catch The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Believe it or not, your friendly neightborhood Nomad is a Rocky virgin! Come along and watch me get "deflowered" tomorrow night!!

Hope to see some of you soon! Meanwhile, tawneypup and gyades and I are off to finish the first day of the decade with dinner, some Lazer Tag, and then some Rock Band! They say that what you do on the first day of the year determines how the rest of the year will be[**]. So it looks like 2010 is shaping up to be boatloads of fun!!

See you tomorrow, my dear [Chicago-based] friends!

---

[*] Not technically accurate, as she was driving. More like she returned with me in tow, but never mind that...

[**] The proverbial "they" is, of course, full of proverbial dung on this point, but never mind that either...

Looking back at previous years, it seems that I rarely blog about the Decemberween[1] celebrations. I suppose that this is not too shocking -- I spend most of Decemberween on the go, and away from a computer. By the time that the holidays are over, too much has elapsed to try to chronicle it all.

This year's attempt to do a holiday write-up is perhaps an illustrative example; it is now late January and I am still not quite finished with my report! I realise that no one else much cares at this point what I was doing one month ago. Indeed, since my holiday in the States ended, I have come back to England, left England for Japan, and returned to England yet again[2]. Obviously, I am well behind in my blogging and it would make good sense to simply give up. However, I am not known for my common sense... and it would feel wrong to leave my travelogue unfinished. Thus, I resume telling my story.

Tuesday December 30^th: Woke up at Mom's place again[3], gathered my belongings, and headed out with cheshcat. Mom was very happy to have had our company, but was obviously quite broken up to see up go. I will try to bring her to England for a week in 2009; I think it would be good for her.

The plan had been to drop cheshcat off with resourceress at squeektoy42's house, then drive four hundred miles to Ohio by the evening to have a date with the lovely livetbd. Well, we all know what Robbie Burns has to say about plans, don't we?

Just after we arrived in Jersey City, right before I was about to bid farewell to my beloved cheshcat, we received a phone call from C&M, who were back in Oxford. Apparently, Giles -- our seven month old tiger kitten -- had gone missing. Oh, crap! We had a series of friends looking in on our Oxford kitties whilst we were away. In addition to feeding and watering them, we asked our friends to make sure that the cats were okay. This was added to the cat care request after last December, when we returned home to find our poor Totoro at Death's door from kidney failure.

But I digress from a very important point: Oh, crap! Giles had last been seen on Boxing Day -- four days earlier. When T had gone to the [as yet unnamed] flat on Dec 28, there was no sign of Giles. Now C&M were there, and he was still missing. At first, I assumed that Giles, being a cat, had simply found a good place to hide. We spent nearly an hour on the phone with C, guiding him about the flat and suggesting places to search. It began with known hiding locations, then progressed to any possible spot that we could conceive of that Giles might get into. We had poor C moving furniture about and climbing on top of things. Still no Giles.

Oh, crap! After searching every conceivable location in the flat, it began to become clear that somebody had accidentally let our cat out. Which means that he was likely lost to us. I had been reluctant to believe this; for one thing, it seemed quite improbably. Yet, as Sherlock Holmes said, when one eliminates all the other options, then what remains, however improbable, must be true. I was also painfully aware that this was one year, to the day, since we returned home to find Totoro nearly dead. Needless to say, both cheshcat and I were becoming very upset.

We kicked into emergency mode. We asked C&M to check with the neighbours to see if they had noticed a tiger kitten about. We called T to see if there was any chance that he had let Giles out. Although that had been my original suspicion, he managed to convince us that he was not at fault. We alerted local cat shelters. Then we called the company that manages our flat to see if they had sent over any repairmen to work on the flat in recent days. After all, there are only a limited number of keys to our flat. T has one and C&M have one; both convinced us that they had not let Giles out. Neither cheshcat nor I had done so, of course, since we were on another continent. It is possible that Darelle or dr_jen could have done so... but since both were out of Oxford, it seemed unlikely. The sole remaining key belonged to the company that managed the flat.

It was out of hours, so we called their emergency number. The woman who answered said that if I called back in an hour, when she was near a computer, she would check for me. However, she also said that they do not normally do repair work between Christmas and New Years. Hurm.

So maybe no one could have let Giles out. Perhaps he was in the flat after all? But... where? He likes to hide from people who are not cheshcat or anarchist_nomad, but where could he be hiding? I came up with a cunning plan. We asked T to go to the flat and remove the cat food. Leave plenty of water, but no food. Then, when C&M returned on the following day, Giles would be quite hungry. In such a case, he would likely come out when anyone -- even a stranger -- rattled the food bag.

With all these plans in place, I finally departed from Jersey City, several hours later than planned.

Total Miles Driven: 1509

Shortly after leaving on my journey, I got a phone call from C. Apparently, T had gone back to the flat and, before he got inside, noticed Giles lazily washing himself in the front window.

That little $H!+!!!!!!!!!!

I was relieved, incredulous, and furious at the same time! Where they hell could that little terror have been hiding? To this day, I still do not know his secret spot! While covering away in it, however, he managed to scare, upset or disrupt a large number of people: There was T, his wife and mother (who he brought on Dec 28 to help search the flat for Giles), C&M, dr_jen (who T had called on Dec 28), Darelle (who dr_jen had called), me, cheshcat, squeektoy42 and A (whose home we turned into Command Central for our emergency operations), resourceress, plus livetbd (who I was now hours late in meeting) and her husband D. How could one little kitten cause so much trouble??!

Anyway, I phoned cheshcat and let her know that all was well. I then continued making my way to Youngstown, Ohio.

I arrived at livetbd's house at 11pm -- far later than planned, and much to late to have a proper date. I am grateful that both she and her husband, D, were understanding. As cat people themselves, they understood, and have been in similar situations themselves. Still, I felt somewhat guilty and promised to make it up to livetbd with a theatre date in Chicago the next time that I am in the States. She did not turn down this offer of penance.

After the three of us spent some time together catching up, D went out to midnight karaoke with friends. That left livetbd and I to have some quality alone time together. Priorities are important: We started off with her giving me a tour of back porch. There sits the new hot tub that they had installed since the last time that I visited. A full appreciation of the installation work required closer inspection, which I was happy to engage in. Nothing quite like soaking in a hot tub in the middle of a cold winter night! Especially when one has some rather delightful company and a distinct lack of clothing!

I am quite grateful that livetbd, like myself, is a night person. Despite my late arrival, we spent quite a few hours -- inside the hot tub and out -- deliciously enjoying each others' company!

Total Miles Driven: 1914



Wednesday December 31^st: I wish that I could say that Wednesday began as well as Tuesday had ended. Alas, this was not to be the case. I awoke -- with far too little sleep -- around 10am to the sound of livetbd crying. Even before I pulled on clothing and rushed downstairs, I feared that I knew what had upset her. I was not mistaken. During the night, one of their cats -- who had been very sick -- had passed away.

Like cheshcat and I before moving to England, livetbd and D had had six cats living under one roof. Since my previous visit, one had escaped, so they were down to five. Now it was four. My calendar sense was tingling -- two cat crises in less than twenty-four hours... plus, they lost their kitty on New Years Eve -- just as we had lost Totoro on New Years Eve the year before.

Both livetbd and D were, understandably, rather upset. My heart went out to them; I could feel their pain. I gave both sympathy and advice on options for dealing with the body. When D decided to bury their furry friend in the backyard, I helped to dig the grave. I stayed with them for a few hours longer than I had originally intended, because I could sense that my presence was appreciated and doing some good.

Eventually, however, I did leave to finish the return to Chicago and the Event Horizon. Neither livetbd nor D were going to go out to celebrate New Years Eve. Who could blame them? How could they? Who can lose a loved one, then immediately go out to party? The previous New Years Eve, when Totoro passed into the Summerlands, gyades and cheshcat and I cancelled our plans to party into 2008 in London. However, I had party plans and very much needed to keep them. I could not spend two consecutive New Years Eves in a row mourning for dead cats. In a very real sense, I needed a New Years party to help me bring about closure for my dear Totoro.

Thus, slightly before 1pm, I said my goodbyes, hopped into Lucretia II, began the four hundred forty-one mile drive back to Chicagoland. The trip was uneventful. Six hours and fifteen minutes later, I pulled into the driveway at the Event Horizon.

Total Miles Driven: 2355

I arrived home just minutes before 2009 began in the United Kingdom, putting an end to my "Christmas on Wheels" adventure! I texted Darelle one more time, hoping to be the last text that she received in the old year. Then I waited to a short while past midnight -- giving her time to celebrate the changing of the year properly with those that she was actually with -- before calling her up. It was rather amusing to have a phone call spanning the years! And, of course, it was absolutely wonderful to hear my beloved's voice once again!

After a nice conversation with Darelle, it was back into overdrive. Unpack, shower, eat -- all as quickly as possible, so that gyades and I could get to the O'hana New Years party as early as we could! We arrived around 8pm and spent the rest of the evening enjoying good company, good food... as well as a pool and a hot tub! Hot tubbing two days in a row? What an excellent way to end the year! Indeed, I could easily make a habit of it!

I will not write too much more about the New Years party, as it already has its own LiveJournal entry. Suffice to say that, at a few minutes before 11pm, I got out of the hot tub and phoned cheshcat -- who was in Connecticut with resourceress, TinMan 2.0, LaForza, and others at the Treehouse New Years party -- to welcome her into 2009 in my home time zone. To mark the occasion, I turned the telly onto the same station that they were viewing at the Treehouse so that we could watch the ball drop together. Then it was back in the hot tub for me! At midnight, Chicago time, we all celebrated the local onset of 2009!

---

[1] "Decemberween" is the term that I use to refer to the period from December 12^th to January 1^st. Those three weeks contain cheshcat's birthday (Dec 12), resourceress's birthday (Dec 20), Yule (Dec 21), Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. As such, the entirety of those three weeks gets merged together into a single long holiday; one that involves an enormous amount of travel and visiting and celebration.

[2] Not strictly true, as I am writing this in Narita Airport as I wait to board my flight. However, by the time I am able to post it, I will be back in England -- most likely on the airline bus to Oxford.

[3] Still not surprising, as this is where I went to sleep again.

As many of you know, cheshcat and I have four cats. Two of them (Giles & The Boy) live with us in Oxford, whilst the other two (Stumpy & Chirp) live with their Uncle gyades at the Event Horizon.[*]

Given the upcoming holiday travels, cat care will be required at both places. So if you are local to Chicagoland or Oxford, please read on. If not... well, this is not the LJ entry you are looking for.

Chicago: gyades will be away from Dec 20 to Dec 29. It would be good to have somebody look in on the cats every three days. So if I could find a volunteer to stop by on Dec 23 and another person to drop by on Dec 26, then we should be all covered there. If two people would be willing to do this, then no one needs to come more than once.

Oxford: cheshcat and I will be away from Dec 22 to Jan 6. Given the smaller space (with fewer and smaller litter boxes), I would greatly prefer to not leave the cats unattended for more than two days. Thus, considerably more cat care visits are needed. I would like it if somebody could stop by on Dec 24, Dec 26, Dec 28, Dec 30, Dec 32 (a.k.a. Jan 01), Jan 03, and Jan 05. Is there anyone on this list who will be around Oxford and willing to look in on our little ones?

I realise that the number of visits to the Oxford kitties is a bit high (seven). The actual work needed each visit is quite low, however, and can be done in about five minutes. Refill the water bowl, refill the food dish, and scoop the litter box(es).

Thanks to all for considering this request!

---

[*] I really do miss the days when we had six cats... and they all lived under one roof!

Back in England once again, having landed at Heathrow about ten hours ago. Am now riding Ye Olde Oxford Tubee into work, which seems like an ideal time to write more about my trip.

The first third of my holiday was P**T***, which I have already written about in summary. This entry, then, picks up from last Tuesday and covers the second third of my trip -- the time spent in and around New York City.

Tuesday and part of Wednesday were spent with Mom, being mostly mellow. By "mostly", I mean that there was an expedition made to notarize and ship the final (?) papers necessary to finish the Accursed Refinance of the Event Horizon[*]. Other than that, we sat and talked, we went to dinner... nothing terribly exciting. Just time catching up with Mom.

Wednesday evening, squeektoy42 picked me up and we went bowling. Despite being without my ball and shoes -- both of which live in Chicago -- I did reasonably well: I bowled a 147 in the first game and a 167 in the second. In the first game, I bowled a turkey near the end, finishing with five marks in a row! This made me quite excited; it has been several years since I bowled a turkey! Had I not wasted the first four frames of this game finding a ball that I felt passably comfortable with, I may well have broken 200 points! After bowling, squeektoy42 and I got dinner at a Mexican restaurant that she recommended -- very yummy food! Then we went back to her place and hung out. I taught her how to play Egyptian Ratscrew[**], we fired Nerf darts at each other, et cetera. All good fun! Eventually, AP and fawx_fae -- who was visiting from Michigan -- joined us and we all sat around talking until Way Too Late.

Thursday, I had a date with the lovely fawx_fae in New York City. Since this was her first trip to the Big Apple, I wanted to give her a whirlwind tour worth remembering. We started by ascending the Empire State Building to get an aerial view of the city. On returning to the ground, we bought some New York pizza for lunch. Having fed ourselves, I brought her to Madison Square Park, where we fed nuts to the uber-friendly squirrels there. She particularly enjoyed an instance where one squirrel distracted her whilst another stole a nut out of her bag. Sneaky little buggers! After leaving the park, we took a walk to (and through) Times Square. This involved stopping in a fair number of gift stores and riding the indoor ferris wheel in the Times Square Toys 'R' Us. Very silly, but lots of fun! Following Times Square, we took a subway downtown and into Brooklyn. We picked up a snack at a local deli and ate it outside, when walked back into Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge. Thus, I was able to show fawx_fae one of my favourite skyline views of the city, to compliment the aerial view we had taken in earlier. Next, we made our way to Chinatown, where we drank tea, looked at anime, and spent way too much money on swords[***]. Eventually, squeektoy42 and AP joined us and we hit a dim sum restaurant for dinner.

I do believe that I succeeded in my mission of showing fawx_fae a good time in NYC. There is only so much that one can squeeze into a single day, but I think I did a reasonably good job of it. In any case, she seems willing to pay me a visit in England next year -- and perhaps in Japan at some point in the future -- so I will presume that I did not fare all that badly!

After dinner, we all headed back to Jersey City and crashed. There were only a few hours before fawx_fae and I needed to head to LaGuardia to fly to Michigan. Still, it was very nice to squeeze in a little cuddle time with her in the night. Special thanks go to squeektoy42 for waking up at Stupid O'Clock in the morning to drive us!

So that was how I spent the middle third of my vacation. Tune in next time, gentle readers, for the final installment: Nomad Does Michigan!

---

[*] I have not yet checked my e-mail from the past twelve days, but I dearly hope that there is a note from gyades telling me that this monkey is at last off of our collective backs.

[**] I was particularly impressed with myself in one game, as I was down to a mere four cards and still came back to win! Admittedly, two of those four cards were a queen and a jack, so it was a very good set of four. But still an impressive feat.

[***] Her, not me.

It is Tuesday afternoon. This morning, I took a short trip to the United States.

Yes, gentle readers, you heard right. I needed to visit the U.S. Embassy here in London to get some papers notarized for the refinancing of the Event Horizon. It was weird to walk off the streets of London and be back in the United States again, including paying for things in dollars (and needing my passport to get in!). I took the underground from Imperial College to the Embassy, but walked back. Oddly enough, the return trip, on foot, was shorter than the outbound one!

It is Tuesday afternoon. Since Monday morning, I have:

• Found a new flat for cheshcat and I to move into
• Had a follow-up meeting at the hospital with cheshcat's surgeon[*]
• Gotten Peter the Red Rover through his MOT, making him legal to drive for another year
• Gone ice skating
• Visited the Embassy to finish the final (?) papers needed for refinancing the house
• lots of other little niggly bits, like arranging cat care for our upcoming trip to the States, that I won't bore anyone with here[**]

Whew! Good thing for those super powers, or I might be feeling a bit worn out after all that!

Right. Back to work then. Let's see if we can't get some physics done before it is time to pack up for the day and head back to Oxford for tonight's ice skating lesson...

---

[*] There was some good news to be had there! I won't discuss it, as it is Chesh's to tell, but good news should be acknowledged!

[**] I realise that this journal is boring enough of late already, seeing as I have not jumped out of any planes, walked on hot coals, climbed the ruins of a Norman castle, witnessed any exploding Time Machines, danced round any seven story bonfires, visited any extreme geographic locations, attended any historic concerts, or mudwrestled since the end of August. [Note to new readers: The above paragraph is the summary version of my July and August] Ah, Summer, old friend! How I do miss thee!