The place where lost socks go...

I blame wolfpeach. Yes, indeed, I do.

It was about two months ago[*] that I randomly encountered him on Ye Olde Oxford Tube as I made my way back from London. Foregoing my usual seat at one of the small onboard laptop tables, I sat down next to my friend to chat, rather than engage in my usual online antics during the journey home.

Partway through the trip, he asked if I would excuse him for a moment, as he wished to briefly check on one of his online games of Carcassonne: The Castle. I was intrigued.

I had originally become familiar with the game shortly after my beloved cheshcat and I moved to Oxford. Not knowing anyone there at the time[**], we made a point of importing many of our two player board games... plus buying others for our new home. Carcassonne: The Castle -- a variant of the more commonly known multi-player Carcassonne -- was one such game. Although I enjoyed it, twas was not much to cheshcat's liking and so we eventually donated our copy to the Oxford BiFest raffle last year, to help raise money for BiCon's scholarship fund. From there, it found a good home with the aforementioned wolfpeach. I confess that I had not thought of it much since, as we have developed a much fuller Oxonian social network and, accordingly, two player games have become the exception, rather than the rule.

Returning nearer to the present, that selfsame wolfpeach introduced me to the website known as YourTurnMyTurn.com. There, one can play a variety of two player games online -- thirty-nine to choose from -- at one's convenience. You make a move when you are able; your opponent is notified via e-mail and returns to the game to respond at their leisure. Since that introduction, many of my spare moments have been wasted spent on this site. I am currently engaged in a fierce multi-week game of Go with the awesometacular gyades, and I have played a multitude of short games -- including Dominoes, Battleship, Penguin, Connect Four, Lost Cities and more -- with cheshcat. My staple on the site, however, remains Carcassonne: The Castle, with both wolfpeach and my darling tawneypup as frequent opponents.

This seems to be a game well suited to my natural talents. Thus far, I have won over 80% of the twenty-one games that I have played. What's more, as play continues, my dear opponents sharpen their games, forcing me to resort to new strategies and tactics if I am to have any hope of maintaining an edge. Of the 108 active Carcassonne players registered on the site, I am ranked 18^th... and I suspect that I am improving. Hmmm, perhaps I should enter a tournament at some point. After all, I am having too much fun to stop now!

As I said earlier: I blame wolfpeach.

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[*] March 15th 2011, to be precise. A Tuesday.

[**] And being able to count all acquaintances in the UK on the fingers of one hand -- with a couple left over!

To sleep, perchance to dream. Or, on the other hand, to be jetlagged... and do neither! Tis well and truly the middle of the night, yet I am still not asleep. Not for lack of trying, either. I wound down the evening many hours ago by having a lovely phone date with the even-lovelier tawneypup[1]. During the phone call, my beloved cheshcat proved once again how sweet and thoughtful she is by bringing me a cup of hot cocoa to help me relax. At the end of the call, I made a valiant effort to sleep. I hopped under the covers to cuddle with cheshcat, and was joined by both Giles and The Boy.

Alas, despite all these accoutrements and preparations, sleep was ever elusive and evaded capture.

So. As long as I am to be awake in the wee hours of the night, I may as well put it to good use, yes? It seems like now is as good a time as any to write the final instalment of my holiday adventures in the States[2]. Perhaps I can write myself into at least half a night's sleep[3]...

Thursday January 1^st 2009 I started the day off by checking out of the hotel where the O'hana party had been held. gyades and I played a game of Go, which he won... though not be all that much. Either I am improving, or his skills are atrophying. Not sure which, but our recent matches have not been nearly the slaughter that they once were.

In the afternoon, I did some mundane things, like tidying the house and seting up my 2009 SlingShot organizer. I also spend quite a bit of time with Stumpy and Chirp; Stumpy, in particular, remains as sweetly slutty as ever! I miss my little furry black girls when I am in England. I still hope to bring them over someday, to reunite them with their brother, The Boy.

After a relatively mellow day, things got more exciting in the late afternoon. "Why is that?" you may fairly ask, gentle readers. It is because the terrific and tantalizing tawneypup arrived from Michigan for a visit![4] Having not seen my delightful darling since October, it was all thrilled and bouncy to be with her again. After suitable greetings were made, I introduced her to gyades. It was not in the least surprising that the two of them took to each other quite readily. There was really no question in my mind that these two would get along swimmingly -- after all, tawneypup is basically a female version of me[5]. The only real risk was that having two of me in one place might fry gyades's brain!

Before tawneypup arrived, gyades had been cooking dinner. In recent years, he has specialised in Indian cooking. Had he and tawneypup not bonded instantly, I suspect that this would have closed the deal. Ever since her trip to India last year, my darling Tawney has been quite the fan of Indian food. And gyades cooks it quite well!

Following dinner, we broke out Ticket To Ride. I had never played the U.S./Canadia version of the game before. However, it is similar enough to the European version that I settled into it quite easily. It was a very close game, but I managed to win. Final scores: 152 points (me) to 120 points (gyades) to 110 points (tawneypup). This doesn't seem all that close. However, on my final turn, with my final card, I bought my final train... for a total of sixty-four points. If anything in that delicate situation had not lined up, I would have been -- what is the technical term? -- completely hosed!

We followed up Ticket To Ride with a game called Quelf. tawneypup had brought it with her -- I had neither played it before nor even heard of it. It is a very silly nonsense game, with a bizarre set of rules. The sort of thing to play when you want to game, but not think very hard. In the end, I won... again by the proverbial skin of my non-proverbial teeth. tawneypup and I made it to the final square at the same time... but I won the challenge on the final card drawn.

When we were done gaming, we bid a good night to gyades, then went upstairs to reacquaint ourselves and catch up on some long overdue quality alone time.


Friday January 2^nd 2009 On Friday morning, tawneypup and I lounged in bed decadently for a very long time. When we finally arose, we showered and then I took her out to Butterfields for breakfast. Butterfields is my favourite breakfast place; since tawneypup had taken me to breakfast at her favourite place, it seemed only fair to return the favour. It took quite some time to choose only one item from the menu. However, we finally did manage to order -- I had a spinach, feta, and mushroom omelet with hash browns and pancakes. When the food arrived it was, as expected, superb!

After breakfast, tawneypup was extremely patient and accommodating, as I needed to pay a visit to the Illinois Secretary of State's office to renew my driver's license. Alas, this was the sole day during my Chicago trip that it would be possible to do so. Whilst there, she got to witness the egocentricity of Jesse White, our SoS. We also got to entertain ourselves by sitting on the "Group W" bench[6].

Once that errand was done, we met up with gyades and went to go play Laser Tag! This was only my second time playing laser tag -- the first was with tawneypup in Michigan last October. I am really enjoying it though! Quite a shame that the Oxford Laser Tag shut down a couple of years ago! I could see myself getting seriously addicted otherwise! Unlike the October games, which were divided into three teams, this was a free-for-all. When all was said and done, I had done... okay. Out of thirty-two players, I was ranked number thirteen. tawneypup was not far behind me, at number sixteen. gyades may need a little more practice -- he came in at number twenty-five.

We dropped gyades off at home and made our way into downtown Chicago. Our destination was a Middle Eastern restaurant where one of tawneypup's friends was performing. This made for quite an excellent evening -- both the food and the dancing were exemplary! When she was done dancing, we all sat and chatted for quite some time before tawneypup and I made our way back to the Event Horizon.


Saturday January 3^rd 2009 Slept in once again! Really, it is hard not to with such company! When we finally managed to pull ourselves out of bed, we joined gyades, who made breakfast for all. Then it was time for a rematch at Ticket To Ride. This time, I started with a terrible hand of route cards. In Thursday's game, I had built all of my routes, drew more, then built them, too. This time, I adopted a different strategy: Built what I had been dealt, then end the game as quickly as possible, making sure to take the "longest road" bonus with me. Although not as satisfying a strategy, it did work. I forced an end to the game whilst both of my dear opponents still had several unfinished routes underway. Final scores: 120 points (me) to 102 points (tawneypup) to 58 points (gyades).

Since the weather was nice, we all hopped in the car and drove half a mile to the Morton Arboretum. One of the many things that I love about the Event Horizon is that it is situation so close to such a wonderful place. I try to visit there every time that I am in Chicago. However, I think that I had not actually had a Winter visit before! It was really nice, seeing the place partially covered in snow! It was great to share this special place with a very special person! We started off in the children's section, climbing the adventure playground equipment. Then we did a "Gnome Hunt"[7] and successfully tracked down all twenty-four gnomes. Sneaky little buggers, those gnomes are! Afterwards, we drove about the site, stopping at times to do a bit of hiking -- for instance, we made our way down the Big Rock trail to see (what else?) the Big Rock!

We stayed at the arboretum until it closed. After that, I took tawneypup out for dinner at a Mexican place in Glen Ellyn. I had not been there before, nor had I known of the place. gyades uncovered it by doing some web research... and I can now highly recommend it!

After dinner, tawneypup and I headed into Chicago once again. Our destination was Sidekick's, the karaoke bar that I used to frequent when I called the Event Horizon my primary residence. It is the site of the monthly Poly Chicago get-togethers, so I have quite a few happy memories there. In contrast, tawneypup had never been to a karaoke bar... so taking her there to lose her karaoke-virginity was not optional! By the end of the evening, I had sang alone twice (Billy Joel's Still Rock & Roll To Me and Scandal's Goodbye To You), she sang alone once, and we sang together once (Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart). It was gangs of fun, and next time we are planning to do a duet of Sweet Caroline. Mainly just for the fun of the bah-BAH-bahs! However, seeing as this was our last evening together for some time, we did not want to stay at Sidekick's until we were ready to fall over for the evening!

Instead, we left around 10:30pm, made it back to the Event Horizon by about eleven, and celebrated the rest of the evening by ourselves.


Sunday January 4^th 2009 Started the day with a return trip to Butterfields, this time with gyades in tow, too. It had been so difficult for tawneypup and I to choose only one item from the menu last time that we decided a return visit was in order! This time, I got an apple and caramel waffle with some very creamy cheese, to boot!

After breakfast, xirpha joined us at the Event Horizon for gaming! We started with Settlers of Catan. Once again, it was a very tight game. I made the mistake of building a settlement too soon, allowing tawneypup to beat me in a race to a valuable port. This set me back significantly, though I finally managed to eke out a win. Final scores: 10 points (me) to 8 points (gyades) to 7 points (both xirpha and tawneypup).

Next game was Betrayal at House on the Hill[8]. This is where my winning streak came to an end. As luck would have it, I was fated to be the traitor in this game. However, some bad dice rolls kept me from doing anything more than killing gyades before I was taken down by the others. There was also a bit of Fluxx played after me and my army of demons went down in flames.

Around half five, tawneypup and I bid an all-too-soon farewell. Then she embarked on the drive back to Michigan whilst I drove to the Lisle train station to pick up the enchanting iamthesphinx.

I won't say much about the date with iamthesphinx here. For one thing, although she is almost never on LiveJournal anymore, she has a habit of popping in and checking up on me when I least expect it. Which is just after I have said something about her in these pages[9]. For another thing, my relationship with the lovely Sphinx is, without a doubt, the most unusual relationship that I have ever had. There have been quite a few ups and downs in the nearly three years that we have been together. I have learned that, whatever my expectations are for when we go out together, they are almost certainly wrong[10].

Case in point: This date went nothing like how I had expected it to go. Indeed, it exceeded my expectations by a wide margin! Blew them all to smithereens -- wherever that is -- one might say. It was a very, very good date. And that is all that I will say in a public forum.


Monday January 5^th 2009 After not nearly enough sleep, I brought the enchanting iamthesphinx back to the train station. I waited with her until her train arrived, then bid her a most fond farewell.

After that, there was the usual barrage of last minute errands to tend to. Mainly hitting several stores for items that I cannot procure in England. Also, giving poor Lucretia II a good wash to recover from over twenty-five hundred miles of driving before putting her away until Spring. And packing. Lots of packing. Nothing really exciting there.

When gyades came home from work at lunchtime, he and I exchanged our holiday presents. Then he drove me to the airport, where I had a nice boring flight back to England.

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And that, dear friends, is what I did on my Winter vacation...

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[1] Said conversation was particularly welcome, due to the fact that we have not spoken in nearly two weeks. Ordinarily, we have a standing weekly phone date. However, we each went travelling for a week... and the two trips were timed just right so as to be serial, rather than parallel.

[2] Actually, given that the trip ended three weeks ago, I would say that two and a half weeks ago would have been a better time. However, that time machine is still in the pipeline. Have to perfect the transporter first, then get started building the invisible aeroplane.

[3] In which case I will finish this composition tomorrow.

[4] Were I Kermit the Frog, this would be an appropriate place to run about, waving my head wildly and shouting "Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!"

[5] Except slightly younger and slightly cuter.

[6] Alongside the mother-rapers... father-stabbers.... and father-rapers!

[7] Very similar to the "ghost hunt" that I did with Darelle and company in November, or the pumpkin hunt that I did with cheshcat at Blenheim Palace in October.

[8] Affectionately known as The Shinning.

[9] See here for an example.

[10] Unless she is in a monogamous relationship at the time we go out. In which case my expectation -- that we are going out as friends only -- is always right. And I would not have that any other way. I am polyamourous; I do not cheat.

Weekend in Chicago has been nice, if a bit mellow.

Arrived at the Event Horizon early yesterday afternoon. Big event for the day was a birthday party for gyades. It was deliberately a smallish affair -- only nine of us in total -- mainly physicists such as madandrew, nyssa73, and ike2100. A bit of gardening took place, including the slaying of an evil tree-like weed. I fired up the grill and bar-b-qued way too much food for everyone! And, as darkness fell, gyades conjured up a fire in our firepit. I do believe that a good time was had by all! As the night went on, slowly people started leaving. When it was just gyades and I left, we set out by the fire for awhile and just had one of those nice long personal chats that winds from one direction to another.

Today has been a little of this and a little of that. gyades and I got breakfast at Butterfields, my favourite place to get a morning meal around here. I sent my graduate and undergraduate transcripts off to NASA, thus completing my application for the astronaut candidate position. gyades and I played Go... wherein he sent me packing with a thirty point win! (Final score: 9 - 26 = -17 points for me, 26 - 13 = 13 points for him) I brought home some Mexican food for dinner, eating my first Mexican meal for this year. That's one thing I do miss when I am in Oxford; you just cannot get good Mexican food![*] And I jumped on the bandwagon this evening and watched Dr. Horrible in the last hours that it is still available.

Now the first Chicago visit for this holiday is coming to a close. Shortly after posting this, I will be off to bed and, come the morning, I make the five hundred mile drive East to Brushwood to attend the Starwood festival. So, starting in about ten hours, I will be completely out of touch for one week -- back late Sunday night (CDT). If I suddenly seem out of contact, know you know why. With no cell phone and no internet, there really will be no way to get in touch with me... short of coming on down to the gathering yourself![**] In effect, I am vanishing from this world for a week and going to visit another... and I cannot adequately tell you how much I am, as always, looking forward to it! Fire, drums, ritual, music, dancing, and more lovely people than you can shake a stick at[***] -- here I come!!

Have a good week, gentle readers, and see you on the other side...

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[*] Having lived in Arizona for a couple of years, I must confess that what I ate tonight is not truly "good Mexican food". Nothing beats the Mexican food that you get when you live somewhere that used to be Mexico -- unless you are in Mexico itself! Still, what I had tonight was far better than anything I've had in England.

[**] Or, in the event of a true emergency, I suppose one could call the site organisers and have them comb the grounds trying to locate me amongst the thousands of attendees.

[***] And, let me tell you, I can shake a stick with the best of them!

Last night's game of GO with gyades did not happen, as he needed to continue physics preparations for his impending trip to England and he collapsed early due to having been awake since 1am for a 4am shift. Thus, I dug into a stack of new comic books, instead. Mmmmm... comic books!

This morning, I waited while gyades tended to the practical preparations for his trip to England. I know full well how hectic things can be before departing for overseas travel to present at a conference. Therefore, patience comes easy.

Eventually, the game of GO was able to happen. And, at long last, I won! I did well enough that there is no final score to report; he simply resigned when it became obvious that he could not win. This is the first recorded victory[*] for me since September 2004. My record keeping has not been complete, so it is possible that I won a game between then and now. However, if that did happen, I did not journal about it. In contrast, I have several journal entries in the same time describing how badly gyades kicked my butt at GO. So this might not be my first win in nearly three years... but it has still been quite a long time. Certainly I know that I did not beat him at all in 2006. I guess getting into the habit of doing the daily problems online -- which I have made a point of since New Years -- has paid off...

Now gyades is all packed and ready to leave for England. The car should be arriving to bring him to the airport in just a few minutes. I will miss him, and I wish that his trip to England didn't overlap so well with my time in the Event Horizon. To use a technical term from wave mechanics, what we have here is destructive interference.

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[*] In the game of GO whilst playing against gyades, that is.

Continuing the chronicles of my Summer Vacation...

Yesterday, I met The Kiddo and his girlfriend in Woodridge to spent the afternoon at the Cypress Cove water park. I had been there two years ago, with resourceress, and we'd had a great time... but then there were no water parks for me last summer. So I had some catching up to do. The park is cute, and not very big[*]; it has three body slides, a tube slide, a lazy river, and a drop slide. We were there for four hours and got to partake of all a fair number of times. Indeed, The Kiddo and I raced several laps around the lazy river in a fashion most unlazy -- to the amusement of the kids doing lifeguard duty. The weather was quite cooperative, which I particularly appreciate since it is raining today. With the exception of said girlfriend flipping at the bottom of the tube slide and banging her head, it was a very nice afternoon. When the park closed, we went to get Mexican food at the nearby Burrito Loco so that I could stock up on Mexican and sate such cravings for another two months. After dinner, they headed south and I went back to the Event Horizon.

During the evening, I got a call from sweetsourcat. We talked for a couple of hours, having a very nice conversation... and the longest chat of our friendship (so far). We've known each other since I moved to Chicago in 2003, and I've always liked her. So getting to know her better, even after I've moved away and she is just about to do the same, is quite nifty. She has some big changes coming up in her life, and it is great to see things falling into place for her.

This morning, I woke up to find an e-mail in my Oxford InBox from JI. He sent me an "e-highfive." It seems that the latest cooldown of the K-400 -- the one that I set up and started before leaving last Thursday -- has been quite the success. We have reached a new low temperature (for us) of 6.3mK and we are making the measurements that we wanted with the legacy detector. Counting the many months that we wrestled with the K-400 malfunction, this result has been over a year in coming! It feels great to have succeeded on this front because it clears the way to some serious R&D (and publications). Electronics are now being put into place, with the cryostat still cold, to take our work to the next logical step. This makes me a very happy scientist, indeed! Perhaps the only thing better than taking a nice long summer vacation is watching one's work make good progress while enjoying said vacation.

Today has been raining. So the day has been largely devoted to errands. I renewed my International Driver's License. I got my annual haircut. I hit the comic book store and found that my bag had gotten so full that it had to be upgraded to a box. There were about 125 comics in said box, being the new issues that I collect which have come out since cheshcat last picked up my subscriptions in early March. Lots of good reading to be had in my near future! I also drove up to Villa Park to get fitted for my wetsuit and other equipment, in preparation for a SCUBA dive in Lake Michigan next Sunday. It has been nearly two years since I last dove, making me very eager to get back under the waves once again!

Now I am home again, waiting for gyades to finish getting ready for his impending departure to England. He leaves the Event Horizon tomorrow, and we are both eager to get in another game of GO before he heads out. I have not beaten him in quite some time... but I have been practicing. So, gentle readers, wish me luck!

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[*] Thus making it a nice warm up for the upcoming trip to Hurricane Harbor!

It's April already?!? How the heck did that happen??

So I am back in Italy again. Third time this year. I would complain that the only places I have been to this year are Connecticut, Boston, Oxford, Stratford, Paris, and Italy... but I suspect that I would not get much sympathy. So, in the interests of not being obnoxious, I will not complain about being bored for someplace new. Nope. Still, I can think it all I want!

I have not updated this thing for a bit, so I shall endeavour to play catch-up now:

Friday: After work, cheshcat and I went to see a production of Playhouse Creatures at the Old Fire Station theatre. After the show, which was good, we went to get dinner and then stopped at G&D's on the way home for dessert. Then it was another episode of Babylon 5 before winding the evening down.

Saturday: Went to work during the day. Again. That makes the sixth weekend in a row where I have worked at least one day. Good thing that I like my job! In the evening, C&M came over. We played Puerto Rico (which cheshcat won), two games of Ra (C won the first and I won the second), and one game of Carcasonne (which I won). Hurm... Wish I hadn't fallen out of the habit of writing down who wins what every week -- last week I did much better, winning two out of the three games (I won Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan, while cheshcat won Ticket to Ride).

Sunday: The Trinity College gardens were open to the public, to raise money for charity. So cheshcat and I went to go have a stroll and see the gardens. I had seen a portion of them before last summer, when resourceress and I went to see an outdoor production of The Tempest performed there. Besides the gardens, we got to see the chapel and also have cream teas in the dining hall. Thus far, in my year at Oxford, I have been inside six of the thirty-nine colleges: I lived with cheshcat in Saint John's for a week when I first arrived, I went to evensong with cassiopia at Magdalen College, I saw The Tempest and strolled the gardens at Trinity College, I saw The Importance of Being Earnest and The Taming of the Shrew in the gardens at Wadham College with resourceress, I went to carol service with cheshcat at Christ Church, and I have had lunch at Linacre College. In the evening, we went out for dinner for part one of our celebration of cheshcat's new job. Then it was time to pack for Italy!

Monday: Spent most of the day in transit from Oxford to Gran Sasso. Slept a lot, too, thanks to the recent bout of insomnia. When not sleeping, I read more of The Nine Tailors and played the New Super Mario Bros. I flew out of Gatwick for the first time. Gatwick feels a lot like Heathrow. I suppose that I should not be surprised, since the same company runs them both. The only real difference is that the coach to Gatwick takes forty minutes longer and costs an additional eight quid for a round trip ticket. Upon arrival in Rome, I picked up a rental car -- a standard this time. I hate to say it, but it felt good to not be driving the type of semi-automatic that I had during my previous two trips here. It also felt good to be driving an Italian car down the motorway into the sunset with the windows on and good music in my ears. Of course, the Italian car in question was a Fiat, not a Ferrari or a Maserati -- but you get the idea. And, shame on me, I forgot to pack CDs... so the music came from my MP3 player, via an earbud. Ah, well. For what it is worth, I also forgot to pack a good ink pen. You always forget something, every time you travel. Driving on the autostrade in Italy is quite the experience -- I generally go about 140 km/hour (nearly 90 mph) and have to stay in the slow lane while people pass me! At least I don't have to worry much about being stopped for speeding!

Tuesday: Today I went into the tunnel and began my shifts here. And tried to get my life in order. With the warmer weather coming, I am getting hungry to get out more and see new places. Time to start planning. Also, I had two excellent cups of hot chocolate! Mmmmmmmm...

Finally, continuing the "Success and Failure" theme from my last entry, I should say that I have been doing daily Go puzzles since New Years. It is one of my forty goals for 2007, as a way of improving my game and giving me some hope of eventually defeating gyades. The difficulty of the daily problems is rated on a scale of one to four. Two days ago, there was a level one problem. I expect to solve level one problems in one shot. Not this time! My first guess proved wrong... as did my second and third. Finally, I had to give up and see what the answer was to this problem that I could not solve. Not how I would expect to fare against a level one problem. Today's problem was level four -- the hardest! I looked at it for about five seconds and picked the right answer. Didn't need to think hard about it; I just saw what the correct position to play in clearly was. And I was right, too! The moral of these stories? I'm not sure -- maybe it is that I am really good at doing challenging things and dreadfully poor at doing easy things? Must ponder...

This post marks the halfway point in my "100 Days of LJ" project. Last year, at this time, I was only up to day thirty-eight. So it would seem that I am winning the race against myself. Go me, I guess! If I had posted every day since starting this project again, I would be on Day 73 by now. Well, to quote the immortal Meatloaf: "Two out of three ain't bad."

This post is also the 400^th entry that I have made in this journal in the [almost] three years that I have been keeping it.

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But enough book-keeping! I am back in Oxford now, after finishing up the Guy Fawkes weekend in London. After the festivities on Saturday night, DL and cheshcat and I went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner. Our waiter was Cuban... and he talked our ears off near the end of the evening. He was a very friendly guy, and we discussed the shameful (and hypocritical) treatment of Cuba by the United States. Sure, we must not trade with Cuba because they are Communist... but China and Vietnam are fine to send money to. Bah! This guy used to work in air traffic control; he once offered a Cuban cigar to a pilot, who could not take it... lest he be fined on his return to the United States. Our waiter suggested he smoke it on the spot but, apparently, the customs agents in the US send sniffer dogs onto planes flying in from Cuba to detect traces of Cuban tobacco. Does this strike anyone else as ludicrous?

Near the end of the conversation, the terrorist acts of September 11 2001 came up. I was struck by the outpouring of genuine sympathy that this man had for the people who died on that day. His country has been devastated for decades by the actions of our government, yet he had nothing but regret for our tragedy. Reciprocal concern is rare amongst my own countryfolk... and one of the reasons why I am ashamed to be a United States citizen.

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On Sunday, I slept in, catching up on some much-needed rest. D&J and cheshcat and I had a lazy afternoon in their Limehouse flat. We talked, we ate. I taught DL how to play Go. We watched a vibrant sunset over the water in the Limehouse basin. It was a good mellow day.

After dark, we headed out to Victoria Park to partake in more Guy Fawkes Day celebrations. The set-up at Victoria Park was very similar to that at Ravenscourt the night before -- there was a carnival (called a "fun fair" here), and a fireworks display, and large crowds of people. Riding the Free Fall at the fun fair, I was able to see several different sets of fireworks going off in the distance when I was at the top of the ride. That was nice, and it reminded me of driving into Saint Louis on Independence Day 2001 with resourceress, as we could see at least six different displays going off in the distance as we approached the city.

Although there was no bonfire at Victoria Park, the fireworks there were coordinated with a bit of theatre. The story was called "Emperor and Tiger"; it was about a greedy emperor who taxed his people beyond belief so that he could have a bigger palace and more power and a better washing machine. He also wanted the pelt of a tiger to make into a carpet. As the emperor was ranting about raising taxes, I commented that we may as well try to blow him up -- it seemed an appropriate thing to do on Guy Fawkes Day. Anyway, under the burden of such taxes, the people fled to the forest, where they called upon the old wise man. Said wise man rode a tiger to the emperor and tried to appeal to his better nature. When this failed, the tiger -- a beautiful mechanical construct / puppet -- attacked... and the emperor quickly relented. Besides, he had been lonely all by himself in his palace, with no sounds except for his washing machine. cheshcat cried out for the tiger to eat the emperor, which got a lot of laughter from the people around us. Unfortunately, the tiger did not do this. Ah, well...

After the show was over, we all left and got Thai food for dinner. Throughout the rest of the evening, one could see fireworks going off regularly... no matter where in London one went. Pretty cool! Finally, when our late dinner was over, cheshcat and I bid D&J farewell, and began the trek back to Oxford and the as-yet-unnamed flat...

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theentwife has noted that it is a little odd for me, as an Anarchist, to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. And, truth be told, she is right. However, until this weekend, I did not know if the celebration was in honour of Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up king and Parliament or in honour of his capture. Part of the reason I did not know this is that most of the Brits we have asked seem a little bit unclear on the subject. Now that I know it is a holiday to celebrate the survival of King James I -- who went on to torture Guy Fawkes before having him hung, drawn, and quartered... well, the cause for celebration is certainly diminished. However, the actual events have very little (i.e., nothing) to do with anything political, and so I am looking forward to taking part in them again next year...

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ETA: It is Monday night, and fireworks are still going off. Folks around here sure do love their Guy Fawkes Day!

As predicted at the end of the previous entry, I finished up Tuesday by hiking a couple of miles in light drizzle at the Morton Arboretum -- taking breaks to read comic books when the rain let up -- then lost to gyades in a game of GO.

Wednesday morning, I left my most recent life (in Illinois) and re-entered the one before it (in Arizona). Yes, that's right: I opted to spend the Summer Solstice in one of the hottest regions of the country. cheshcat picked me up at Sky Harbor and we went to get lunch with one of her colleagues. Although I came back here frequently -- nearly once a month -- when I first moved away in September 2003, I have not been back for almost a full year.

I miss the desert very much; I liked living here. During the two years that I lived here -- from mid-2001 to mid-2003 -- the life that I put together was not as complete as the roots that I have laid down in the Chicago area. I did not own a house here. Most of my friends were from the Anarchist community, as opposed to the wide range of people (Anarchist, physicist, polyamorous, sci-fi, Pagan, etc.) that I know in Illinois. I did not even have a job locally. Nonetheless, it was a pretty good life. I got my feet wet doing formal Anarchist organizing here. I swam regularly. I organized monthly star parties and did a good deal of private observing on my own or with cheshcat. That's the advantage of perpetually clear skies. And, of course, we rescued our four baby kitties here so that they could be born in our bathtub instead of the harsh, hot outdoors.

Yesterday evening, I went to watch cheshcat teach her summer course. This is a tradition that has been in place for all eight years that she has been teaching. For every course that she teaches, I sit in on one of the classes. This is how I know, first hand, that she is such an excellent teacher! In fact, watching her teach last night is the main motivator for this two-day trip to Arizona. And, as usual, she did remarkably well.

After class ended, I took the car and drove about forty miles North of the city to Four Peaks Road, a dirt road partially up in the desert mountains. There I met winewiskeywomen and two other people from the Phoenix Anarchist community for a small star party. Just like old times! It was good to see winewiskeywomen again, and great to be out in the desert night air, under a clear sky full of stars. It had definitely been too long since I last did this, probably two and a half years. We chatted and caught up on events while watching Jupiter and its four major moons, while resolving double stars like Alcor & Mizar, while zooming in on clusters, and while gazing sans telescope or binoculars at the Milky Way. Overall, a very pleasant evening!

Now then... time to grab a good book and then I am off to the swimming pool!

My current vacation in the States has been designed to be a bit of a whirlwind tour of my life. Today is my sixth -- and final -- day in Illinois. Tomorrow, I go to spend two days in Arizona, the previous State that I lived in. Then I will be in New York, where I lived before AZ, on Friday... before finishing up with two days in Massachusetts. Each of the four states that I have lived in gets a bit of my time on this trip.

The first, and longest, leg of the tour goes to Illinois because it is where I call home and it is where I seem to have put down the deepest roots. As that leg begins to draw to a close, here is a report on what I have been up to this week:

Thursday: Landed at O'Hare around 10am. After gyades picked me up, we went for lunch. Then I spent a fair bit of the day running errands... the sort that I could not do from thousands of miles away. I also dropped by the lab to see some of my old colleagues in the Particle Astrophysics Center. That was nice. On my way home, I stopped by the comic book store and picked up the past three months worth of books. polymorphism made dinner for us at the Event Horizon. Finally, I read myself to sleep with the last three issues of DC's Infinite Crisis and the first two issues of Marvel's Civil War. I thought the Crisis story was okay, but I was extremely impressed with Civil War... quite in spite of myself! I have made a hobby of being a Marvel cynic for the past decade or so... primarily out of bitterness for the sharp decline in the quality of their books. So I find myself impressed at how good this particular cross-over story is starting off!

Friday: I spent the day with iamthesphinx. This may be, so far, the only time that I have been more nervous approaching a second date than I was on the first date. Since the weather was quite hot, we decided to postpone the Botanical Gardens, which are outdoors, in favour of the Garfield Park Conservatory, which is indoors. I am not sure how we decided that a greenhouse on a hot day would be a smart idea, from a temperature perspective. However, the conservatory itself was lovely and made for a very good visit. Then we went out for Mexican food -- which there is a definite lack of in England. After a quick stop at her apartment, where I got to meet her two adorable kitties, we spent the evening at two karaoke bars. The first one, Hidden Cove, was new to me; then we ended up at our regular spot... Sidekick's. Throughout the course of the day, we had one long conversation that organically shifted in topic to cover an enormous range of subjects. Which was fantastic!

Saturday: Party Day! As usual, everyone at the Event Horizon spent the first few hours of the day getting things set up for the party. Then, around 1pm, we could relax as friends began arriving. The party ended up being a bit smaller than usual -- thirteen people total, where most recent parties have numbered in the twenties. I mainly attribute this to AnthroCon, which a number of regular attendees were at. Ah, well. Those who could not show were missed, but I was quite happy to catch up with all the friends who could be there. So long as there is an interest, I will probably continue hosting these parties each time I come back to the States.

Over the course of the day, I played a fair number of games. First was Apples to Apples, which iamthesphinx won quite handedly. Although I enjoy the game, I never do very well at it. Indeed, this time I did not score a single point! Then I played Wise & Otherwise, in the backyard, beating polymorphism for the first time ever!! (Or at least for the first time when she was not sleeping during the game...) We took advantage of the good weather to play a small game of Four Square. When it ended, I was in the lead spot, for whatever that is worth. At least I did not get bonked on the head for it this time, as I did back in March! Before pizza arrived, I was part of an aborted game of Carcasonne and after dinner I played a truncated Lord of the Fries, which madandrew won.

In between pizza and Lord of the Fries, there was a group discussion of physics, with most people at the party. It started when somebody asked me about what I am working on now. I did my best to give a lay explanation, though I am still new enough to the world of dark matter detection to have perfected my routine yet. Hopefully I did a good enough job; I take the business of explaining science to non-scientists quite seriously. When I worked on solar and supernova neutrinos at Super-Kamiokande, I had perfected a standard explanation within one year. During that year, it was improved from questions that people asked me. Though, after reaching perfection, I gave the explanation so often that I began to grow bored with it, despite how well it was received. I am still working on a standard explanation for dark matter detection.

Around 11pm, most people had left and only gyades, polymorphism, iamthesphinx, and I remained. gyades built up a fire in the backyard -- no small feat given that it had rained earlier in the evening. Then we all gathered around the fire and talked for several hours. This made for some of the more relaxing time that I have spent in quite a while.

Sunday: My time in Illinois branched out from Chicagoland. After sleeping in, I woke up and drove to Urbana to see cassiopia for the first time since her trip to England last month. We finished the masks that we had begun making late last year and worked on periodically since then. We went out for dinner -- Mexican food once again -- and then got ice cream for dessert. Back at her place, the House of Slack, we watched Tristan and Isolde as we ate the ice cream. Then we talked for a good long while, catching up on various things. Overall, a mellow but good day. And now I have a completed mask!

Monday: I completed the rounds of other places in Illinois that are significant to me. After sleeping in again, I left the House of Slack and drove from Urbana-Champaign to Bloomington-Normal to see the Kiddo. Now that he is off for the summer -- after a 4.0 first year in grad school -- he seems to be doing quite alright. We hung out and caught each other up for a bit. We got lunch and then his girlfriend came over so that I could meet her. The three of us strolled around the two ponds at his apartment complex, then met up with his girlfriend's friend to play mini-golf. The friend arrived after us, so we filled the interim time by playing in the arcade and tossing about the high-bounce balls that I had won. cheshcat and I used to play mini-golf regularly when we lived in Long Island and Arizona but, before yesterday, I had not picked up a club in quite some time. It showed: The Kiddo beat us all, with me trailing in second place by eight strokes. Next time! (I wonder if they have mini-golf in England...) After the game, the Kiddo and I went back to his apartment and played a game of Jenga. Our final height -- thirty-two completed levels -- was respectable, but nowhere near our best score of 39 2/3 levels, from many years ago. Finally, as the day got late, I drove back North to the Event Horizon and spent some time talking with both housemates, gyades and polymorphism, before going to bed.

Tuesday: Today I woke up early to bring Foxy to the vet. It seems that she is doing very well. She has put on weight and is maintaining it. The swelling in her lymph node has gone down. All good signs. We will soon be taking her off of antibiotics, then weaning her off of the steroids. It looks like our little girl is very likely to be okay now. What a relief!!!

Later today, I hope to take a walk at the Morton Arboretum. It will be the last walk that I take before my membership expires in August. I was planning to go there before writing this entry; however, a drizzle had begun, so I took to the computer while waiting for the rain to subside. If it does stop, then I will bring some comic books with me so that I can walk as well as read in a beautiful space. Tonight, I am planning to play gyades in GO, with the usual outcome -- he kicks my arse -- expected. And then, tomorrow morning, I am off on a plane to Phoenix, where I will be reunited with cheshcat once again!

Right now, I feel a little bit like I have been on a foreign tour of duty and am getting a bit of welcome shore leave in before returning to my station. I love it over in England, but I have missed being here, too. That's the trouble with having only one body; I need clones.

More about the upcoming legs of this trip as they actually happen...

Today marks two and a half years since I moved to Illinois... and there are less than one hundred hours now until cheshcat and I leave for the airport to move to Oxford.

The immanent departure means that things are definitely getting down to the wire now. Today, I spent much of the day bustling about the lab preparing for my departure (or, as they put it, "termination") on Friday. I returned keys and my parking sticker and my cryptocard. I signed over my laptop, even though I get to keep it for a few more days. I spoke to payroll about my last check. I filled out the "termination questionnaire." Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth...

Besides wrapping up lab business, I also met with the person who is going to buy Pazu (my Honda Civic) from me on Friday and got a $200 deposit from him. Wow. Can't believe Pazu is going to be gone soon. I've had that car for over seven and a half years... it may not sound like much, but I have owned that car for 1/4 of my life! (And more than half of my adult life) I'd like to keep Pazu, but it really does not make sense if I am going to be gone for four years. We're also selling Lucretia I (cheshcat's Dodge Stratus, the one that got stolen) to polymorphism in July, which takes care of two out of the three cars. Not sure yet what we are going to do with Lucretia II, the Infiniti G20. For certain, we will keep it for cheshcat to use until July. After that, I am not clear if we will keep it or sell it. Too far in the future to tell right now, and I am somewhat torn. It could bring in a fair bit of money, but it is also the nicest car that either cheshcat or I have ever owned.

Speaking of endings, I also had my last muscle toning class tonight. It was the usual hour of pain, of course, but afterward a lot of people said that they would be sad to see me go. That was sweet, since I have only been taking the class since January, while some of the other people have been enrolled for a decade or even two. After the class, my instructor told me that she had something for me in her car. Supposedly, it was the "fabulous prize" for perfect attendance in the session that just ended. Actually, it was more of a going away present: Three books on SCUBA diving, one by my instructor (""Diver's Guide to the Kitchen" -- because she evidently does not know that I am a vegetarian) and two by her husband ("The 100 Best Great Lakes Shipwrecks", Volumes I & II). All three books were inscribed by their authors, which I thought was very sweet of her.

Ran some more errands on the way home, at the computer supply store (needed a Serial ATA-to-IDE converter) and the pet supply store (bought 120 pounds of cat litter and 60 pounds of cat food). Now I plan to spend the rest of the night getting more and more prepared to depart. And, I hope, possibly spare some time for a game of GO with gyades.