The place where lost socks go...

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!!

Helloooooooooo, World! Happy 2012 to all of you, gentle readers!

Late last night, my darling miss_amaranth and I returned to Chiron Beta Prime, after a delightful twelve day trip to the States. Hence my inaugural LJ entry for the new year, now that my galavanting has concluded for the nonce. We had a fantastic vacation, and it was truly awesometacular to see so many of you, my dear friends! The journey took us to New York City for three days, Philadelphia for three days, and Chicago for five days... with one day in between Philly and Chi-town for driving. It was a brilliant mix of sightseeing and socializing with splendiferous people. We ascended the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower; we ushered in the new year with our dear friends at Asylum House and we toured the Big Apple's Christmas sights with friends from the Sooper Sekrit Pagan Festival; we walked the Brooklyn Bridge and toured Independence Hall; we went to poly karaoke night in Chicago, celebrated a birthday with Ohana house, and enjoyed a visit from my favourite Michigoose, the astounding tawneypup. All this and more, making for twelve wonderful days! Also, it was miss_amaranth's first time in the States, and I dare say that she enjoyed herself enough to return at some point.

So now it is the start of 2012, the beginning of the year that will supposedly end the world. Sounds a lot like last year in that regard, doesn't it? As I re-integrate into my life in Merry Olde Englande, I find myself sometimes confused upon seeing people for the first time this year. How long is it okay to greet somebody with a "Happy New Year"? Tis clear when to begin granting such new year wishes; on the day after Christmas, I drop the "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", replacing them with a hearty "Happy New Year!" But when do you stop? For me, I was cheerfully addressing strangers in this fashion for two or three days, but stopped sometime around the fourth or fifth. However, I am still employing the phrase with acquaintances if I encounter them for the first time in the year. Not quite sure how long that will last before it, too, feels out of place. How do you phase out the New Year greeting, gentle readers?

For that matter, how long is it acceptable to keep one's holiday decorations up? Whilst enjoying breakfast at Butterfield's on January 4^th, I noticed them taking down their Decemberween ornaments. At home, on Chiron Beta Prime, ours are still in place, as I have been away for nearly a fortnight. They shall be coming down over the weekend, with our lovely tree being donated to become wood chips in a local park. How about you, my friends? When do you restore your home to its non-December mode?

Finally, and apropos to nothing, I should note that this entry is being written from Ye Olde Oxford Tube. Of itself, this is not surprising, as many of my entries are written thusly. However, there was one unexpected detail when I tried to post. I am online by generating a network connection via my phone... as the WiFi network on the coach no longer allows me access to my journal. This is new and has never happened before. A little investigating revealed that it is not LiveJournal as a whole that is blocked, but my individual journal. It would appear that new content filters are in place... and they seem to balk at accepting the word "Anarchist" in a URL. Oi!

Nearly home now, so time to sign off. I hope that everyone had a vunderbar holiday... and I am rather looking forward to interacting with all of you in the new year! Huzzah!!

Just returned to the Event Horizon for my Summer trip... and upon landing in Chicago, I am pleased to pronounce that it is really Summer here! Unlike Oxford, where the highs hover in the high-60s and low-70s, the forecast here is in the high-80s, and expected to hit 90 on Sunday![*] I may go to to the Cypress Cove water park on Saturday -- anyone care to join me if I do?

Getting here was uneventful, by which I mean that I slept through most of the trans-Atlantic flight. Once past passport control and immigration, the ever-awesome gyades met me at O'Hare in Lucretia II, the Infiniti G20 that cheshcat and I share as our US car. That was a nice touch, to be picked up in my own car; I used to try to do the same when making airport runs for gyades and cheshcat and polymorphism. What was also nifty was starting to catch up with gyades on the drive from airport to Event Horizon. Much more of that to follow in the coming weeks!

I have been back at the Event Horizon for about half an hour now; gyades dropped me off and then returned to Fermilab to continue working. Hard to believe it has been nearly half a year since I last left here, on January 9^thth! Still, it has... and so much has happened since then! Getting our Indefinite Leave to Remain in the United Kingdom and my full British driving licence, exploring Prague and Vienna, adventures in Chester and Dover and the Lake District, working in Japan on the T2K electron neutrino appearance results, visits from kat1031 and tawneypup. So far, 2011 has been treating me rather well!

The first thing that I did after arriving was take a look in our backyard to see the rosebush that we planted above Scarlet, the five week old kitten that Resourceress adopted in June 2005 who died a few days later. I was pleased to see that it is doing well and in bloom. Poor Scarlet -- she would have been six years old now! Speaking of cats, Stumpy was quick to greet me... and to demand petting! The little love was rewarded for her efforts with much affection (which she liked) and with the trimming of six month's growth from her talons claws (of which she was less fond). Chirp, being the more skittish of the two, has yet to show herself. That will come in time -- probably when I try to read in bed tonight!

Between now and then, however, there is fun to be had! When booking my travel, it had completely slipped my mind that today is the first Thursday of the month. This means that tonight is Poly Chicago's karaoke evening at Sidekicks! Awesome! I was reminded by an e-mail that came through whilst waiting to board my plane. After posting this, tis time for a shave and a shower, then off into the city for some cavorting with old (and presumably new) friends!

Ah, Chicago! Tis good to be back!

---

[*] That is about 32^oC for those of you who prefer metric. Which, for temperature, I do not. I see clear advantages in metric units for distance, mass, and volume. For temperature, not so much.

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.

---

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

---

[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.

At the Event Horizon now, waiting for the first guest to arrive for today's party. They should be here any minute... but let's see if I can't sneak in a quick post before then!

When last we left our intrepid hero, it was Wednesday night... and he had just finished spending a delightful day at Hurricane Harbor with the enchanting tawneypup. Our hero fell asleep early that night, exhausted from the cumulative lack of sleep as well as spending the whole of the day out in the bright sun.

Our story continues...

Thursday, I woke up early (8am), showered, and went to work at Fermilab. At this point, gentle readers, I can hear a collective "Huh?" emanating from your lips. "But aren't you on vacation? Didn't you stop working for the lab well over two years ago?" All true. Interestingly enough, I went to the place of my last job (Fermilab) to meet with people who I will be working with at my next job (Imperial College London)... which will, coincidentally, involve an experiment (Super-Kamiokande) that I worked on two jobs ago (Stony Brook)[*]. Basically, Thursday morning involved every professional job I have had except for my current one (Oxford). Go figure!

Anyway, I met some remaining members of the Imperial group, who have been stationed at at Fermilab. I participated in a video conference. And then I got a tour of the SciBooNE experiment, which my new group at Imperial is heavily involved with. I stayed at Fermilab until shortly after 2pm -- effectively working a half day on my vacation for a job that I have not started yet -- and then came home.

Thursday afternoon was spent running various and sundry errands. While productive, they are not particularly interesting... so I will say no more about them. Thursday evening was much more fun. I went to Sidekicks for a special Poly Karaoke night that I had called. The usual monthly get-togethers are on the first Thursday of each month; given that I will be gone by then, I pulled together my own outing. Several nifty people -- including unclevlad and the lovely wyldekyttin -- showed up, and I got to see a couple of old acquaintances that I rare spend time with now. The overall crowd at the bar was small -- and the number of people singing even smaller -- so I got to go on stage more often than ever before. I think I sang nine times during the evening. Good fun!

And on that note, the first guests are here... so I will have to wait until later to write about Friday and my lovely date with iamthesphinx...

---

[*] Now that I think of it, I have not written very much about what project the new job will entail. I should rectify this at some point.

Two days in, it's been a pretty good vacation so far.

Last night, I went to Sidekick's for the unofficial Poly Karaoke gathering that I had called. There was a decent turnout -- a dozen people showed up, including xirpha, salexa, sciffy_circo, electronicrope, the ever-awesome sweetsourcat, randyjackson221, raven_ap_morgan, and the lovely iamthesphinx. Lots of fun, good people, and good conversation. I sang four songs; it seemed appropriate to begin with something by British Anarchists, so I sang Tubthumping first, then the Safety Dance, next Major Tom (coming home), and then ended the evening with more typecasting -- She Blinded Me With Science. Good thing miss_tessa wasn't around, or else she would have smacked me with a telephone or somesuch.

Around midnight, things finally started to break up. I drove iamthesphinx back to her apartment and got the "grand tour" of her new place. It was really, really good to see her again. I finally returned to the Event Horizon around 2am. At that point, it would have been quite a sane and reasonable suggestion to go to bed. Especially since I had slept only four hours, while sitting up on a plane, the night before. However, I just had to check LiveJournal first. As chance would have it, kat1031 logged into AIM right after I hopped online. We started chatting, but quickly moved our conversation to the phone lines. It was nice to hear her voice again... for the first time in over fifteen years. To our mutual surprise, we each think that the other's voice has not changed. Go figure! This impromptu conversation was interesting enough to keep us on the phone for over three hours, until we were both about to pass out from exhaustion. We also starting setting up plans to get together next month, during the two weeks when I will be out in California. It was 5:30am for me (and 3:30am for her) when we finally got off the phone. I fell asleep immediately... and was so tired that I slept for seven hours solid without any disruption -- probably the best night's sleep that I have had in weeks!

Today, I woke up around 1pm. Very soon after, I called the lab in Oxford to learn the state of the cooldown and measurement. Then I did what nobody would ever expect of me: I spent the afternoon being mellow and relaxing. I don't do it very often -- I think I have now filled my quota for the year. In the evening, I got together with gyades and madandrew and nyssa73 to go bowling. I bowled four games, scoring well on three of them: 154, 151, 122, and 150. After bowling, gyades and I came home and hung out for a bit. Then I made dinner for us and polymorphism. They both collapsed into their respective beds shortly thereafter and, with the Event Horizon party starting in eleven hours, I will go collapse into mine shortly after posting this entry.

As I said, a good start to my summer vacation. Looking forward to seeing many, many people at the Event Horizon party tomorrow. From the RSVPs, I am expecting quite a nice turnout...

Back again in the land of Mom, cheap gasoline, and apple pie. Summer vacation has begun!

The flight from uneventful, as usual, and I slept for more than half of it. gyades picked me up at O'Hare and we got Mexican food for lunch -- my first in over six months -- before coming home. It is good to be back at the Event Horizon; I do love this house. Glen Ellyn may not be anywehre near as nifty as Oxford, but the Event Horizon is a much nicer space than Skullcrusher Mountain. And, of course, Stumpy and Chirp have already lavished kitty love on me. Or, rather, demanded that I lavish love on them... which is about the same thing.

Looking forward to seeing some of you tonight for karaoke at Sidekicks... and on Saturday at the Event Horizon party. Also, for anyone interested, The Kiddo and polymorphism and I will be heading down to Cypress Cove on Sunday afternoon. Anyone who wants to join in the fun, just let me know!

Meanwhile, my goal for the next month is to speak only US English. We shall see how well I succeed in this challenge.

Wowza -- after over six months away, I am finally coming to visit the States. By next week at this time, I should be comfortably enshrined at the Event Horizon! With my three lovely black furry girls to lavish attention on, too![*]

For folks local[**] to Chicago, here are my social plans for the trip. Check it out and come join me for some of this!

Thu July 12: An unofficial Poly Karaoke at Sidekicks from 7pm until who knows when! I'm hoping that lots of the PolyChi crowd will show up for this one, especially the people I did not get to see when I was last in Chicago in December.[***]

Fri July 13: Bowling with gyades and madandrew.

Sat July 14: SUMMER PARTY at the EVENT HORIZON! With sprinklers and fire and frisbee -- oh, my!

Wed July 18: Dinner and evening with wyldekyttin, crim_ferret, unclevlad and the rest of their clan.

Thu July 19: resourceress arrives in town!!!

Mon July 23: Leave Chicago (boo!) for Starwood (yay!).

Careful readers may note that this does not even account for half of the days that I will be in Chicagoland. And that, gentle readers, is where you come in. I have several other activities planned, like SCUBA diving wrecks in Lake Michigan, hitting two water parks[****], my traditional walk around a part of the Morton Arboretum, and possibly making an urban exploration trip with stormdog and posicat. The dates for these things are not yet set[*****], so if you are interested in joining me for one (or more) of them, let me know! Together we can sort the scheduling out!

Looking forward to seeing many of you again -- quite soon!

---

[*] Well, two lovely black furry girls to lavish attention on. Unless a major miracle has occurred, like one did with Foxy two years ago, I expect that Nona will simply hide under a chair for my entire visit.

[**] For whatever definition of "local" suits you.

[***] Not-so-subtle hint to iamthesphinx, sweetsourcat, et cetera.

[****]The water parks in question are Hurricane Harbor and Cypress Cove.

[*****] But will obviously be between July 12 and July 22 (inclusive) while not being on any of the dates already mentioned above.

Like the previous post, this entry is for my Chicago area friends. Once upon a time, I thought I would be at the Event Horizon after Starwood, in the first week of August... making it easy to attend the Poly Karaoke on August 2^nd. But, as Robbie Burns likes to say, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agely. Know what I mean?

Since I'll be in Stanford in early August, my time at the Event Horizon has been shifted to before Starwood. So no first Thursday of the month for me. Not being one to let a little thing like timing stop me, I am planning to announce an unofficial Poly Karaoke on either the second or third Thursday of July. That's either July 12^th or 19^th. Both dates are equally good for me, so I was wondering if anyone who would be interested in coming along has a preference. If so, drop a comment and let me know which of the two Thursdays is better for you. Using the replies, I'll settle on the best date and announce it on the Poly Chicago list in a few days.

Looking forward to hitting ye olde Sidekicks again... and hope to see some of you there!

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...