The place where lost socks go...

This entry answers the questions that were posed to me here. Before I begin, though, here is a word from our sponsor a follow-up to my invitations post:

Saturday October 24th: Samhain in Oxford - So far, we have five or six people who are coming to this. At most, there is room for about three more. The ancestor toast gets to be a bit unwieldy when the numbers reach into the double digits -- at least it does if you don't put time constraints on it, which I am reluctant to do.[*] If you were thinking of joining us for our Samhain ritual, please send an e-mail to myself or cheshcat. Or both.

Sunday November 29th: Moctezuma in London - At the moment, there are five people coming along for this. cheshcat, bunnypip, myself, and two leverets. I plan to purchase tickets tomorrow (Monday). If you would like to join us, please speak up now! Grazie!

That said, it is time for some answers!

The first question to be answered has come from several different people who are wondering what the significance is of the day counter on my recent entries. Long time readers of this journal have recognized it as the marker of the "100 Days of LJ" project that I swiped from Resourceress back in 2005. Starting on August 25^th, I did this in 2005 and 2006, with a modified -- and less interesting -- version in 2007.

The main purpose of the 100 Days project is to get me posting more in this journal. I skipped the project in 2008, as I felt that I was already posting rather prolifically. Not so in 2009, hence a return to the 100 Days. The project always begins on the same day to make comparisons between the years possible.[**] In the past, I have posted a "Day 0" explanation on August 25^th; I had planned to do the same this year... then ended up spending the day in the hospital with a kidney stone. So no Day 0 in 2009.

All clear? Good! Then on to the anonymous questions from my Day 18 entry:

lunarbitch: I would do anything for a Klondike bar! (But I won't do that...)

bunnypip: Lots! Lots and lots and lots! (And a bit more than that!)

acelightning: Sad to say, it was not.

blaisepascal: I believe this is now understood, yes? (If you have further questions, do let me know!)

uberredfraggle: Guilty as charged! I do that, every once in a while.

bunnypip: I don't think so. You are very good at hiding it! (XXXXXXXX!)

darkfloweruk: I thought about this question for a long time. I'm still not sure if I have an answer. It may have less to do with my level of energy and more to do with my sense of urgency. The world is vast and filled with wonder; our time on it is short. I will never get to do all the things that I want to do. With this understanding in mind, I do my best to make the most of every single day -- and hour and minute -- so that I can experience as much as absolutely possible of the bounty that life has to offer.

Also, it is worth noting that cjtremlett is the lucky recipient of the 110 points awarded for making the 11,000^th comment on my journal! ConGRATulations!!! (Huzzah!)

These answers have been brought to you by the Nomad Answer Service Telling You! With that duty discharged, it is time to go pack, and maybe to catch a quick nap. I have a bus to catch in just over three hours...

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[*] Last year, with seven people, the ritual went on for about six hours.

[**] Yes, I am a numbers geek with a mild case of OCD. Why do you ask?

...to tawneypup and resourceress and Darelle.

Y'all rock! Just saying...

Tonight's meeting was shorter than expected -- only about fifteen minutes long. When it ended, I was a touch shaken, but fundamentally okay. Decided that, rather than head straight home, I would take a walk along the Thames to ground myself.

Some say that things come in threes[1]. I am not sure that I believe this[2], but tonight the Universe gave me three things in a row -- all of which helped me to gather my inner strength, focus, and balance. The first happened as I crossed the Blackfriar's Bridge, just before commencing my walk. I am not sure where it emanated from -- possibly St. Pauls, or maybe the Southwark Cathedral -- but the music of change bell ringing filled the air. It was an unexpected surprise, and the beloved music helped me to find my center once again. Next was the stroll along the waterfront. This was not a surprise; being a water elemental, I knew that a walk alongside water would do me good. I walked until I felt calm and balanced once again. Before that happened, my walk led me to the lion statues near Cleopatra's Needle. Two years ago, resourceress and I walked by these lions -- indeed, I took a photograph of her that has become one of her LJ icons. Upon reaching the lions, I curled up between the paws of one of them and sat for awhile, looking out over the water. I remembered the strength and the longevity of the bond between resourceress and myself. I drew strength from this bond. I also remembered an important metaphor about lions that my dear tawneypup recently shared with me. This, too, warmed the heart. While sitting with the lions, I called on that strength to make an important phone call. Eventually, I left the lions and walked further, until I was ready to come home. I am doing so now, writing this entry from the Oxford Tube[3] on my way back to Skullcrusher Mountain.

Tonight's meeting concerned an ending, and was part of this year's Samhain. My Samhain began last Saturday night at sunset. For one thing, that was the final sunset before we changed the clocks back here in Merry Olde England[4]. Since then, the clocks have been changed and the sun sets before five o'clock. This large increment of lost daylight is an essential part of my Samhain experience, and it signals the coming of Winter. Saturday evening was also when my first Samhain ritual of the year took place; cheshcat and I did a small private ritual to honour some who are newly amongst the ranks of the Beloved Dead.

Samhain is the start of Winter, and the turning of the year. This year has certainly been all about Change[5]. Compared to this time last year, I have a new job in a new city, working on a new experiment in a new country. cheshcat has a new job, too. Her health is also in a new, and potentially better, place. Together, we have a new car, a new cat, and are about to have a new flat. With one exception, all of the significant romantic relationships in my life have changed, too. I won't pretend that it has been an easy year; most of these changes were quite painful when they were happening -- the period from December 17^th to April ^th hurt like hell![6] However, I find that I am in a strong and positive headspace this Samhain season.

Indeed, I find that my current energy makes for an interesting contrast with Samhains of the past two years. In 2006, somebody turned up the Samhain volume too much; that year, the Samhain energy was particularly intense as the Universe chose to beat the crap out of not just me, but also many other people that I know. Samhain 2007 was quite different; possibly due to a cold, or maybe due to the intensity of Samhain 2006, I felt very little connection with the Samhain energy last year. We did a small ritual and went to WitchFest in London, but it all felt very distant. To use the Three Bears as a metaphor, Samhain 2006 was too much, Samhain 2007 was too little, and Samhain 2008 feels just right. I am wrapping up the last loose ends of the year and moving forward into next year from a place of strength and grounding.

In addition to doing our private ritual on Saturday, cheshcat and I celebrated the season on Sunday with a visit to Blenheim Palace to attend their "Very Victorian Halloween" festivities. These included haunted ghost stories, a show from a nineteenth century magic lantern, and a pumpkin train... as well as a more generic stroll in the formal gardens and past the waterfall.

Plans for upcoming Samhain and Halloween events include running our traditional Ancestor Ritual for a group of good friends on Friday (Samhain proper), followed by a visit to a haunted farm, and a walk in Salcey Forest to watch the leaves changing colour over the weekend. Backup plans, in the event of rain, could include the Halloween festivities at the Oxford Castle, a ghost tour of Oxford, or a performance of Sweeney Todd at the Old Fire Station Theatre in Oxford[7].

To all those on my f-list who celebrate this holiday, I wish you a very Blessed Samhain! To everyone else, I wish a Happy Halloween[8]!

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[1] Which may come as a surprise to the lovely tawneypup, given her Halloween costume this year.

[2] Indeed, I probably don't.

[3] Where I seem to write most of my LJ entries of late.

[4] A side effect is that, for this week only, I am a mere four hours ahead of the East Coast and a scant five hours ahead of Chicago. If anyone wants a phone call from their favourite Nomad, this is probably a good week to arrange one!

[5] And not the sort a certain politician likes to talk about, either!

[6] The first date is when cheshcat's knee got injured, starting the period where the Universe decided to use us as a punchingbag. The second date is when we laid our beloved Foxy to rest, which was the last of the large traumas. Much rebuilding work remained -- indeed, it is not yet all over -- but the continuous volley of tragedies finally stopped raining down on us at that point. Which gave me the breathing room to stop doing triage and start on the rebuilding.

[7] I am somewhat torn about this. On the one hand, it is Sweeney Todd. On the other hand, it is OFS -- a venue for [very] amateurish productions. Just out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in joining us for this if we were to procure tickets for Saturday night (Nov 1)? It probably won't happen, as we already have plans if the weather is good... but I am just putting out some exceedingly tentative feelers to evaluate the potential of this as a backup plan.

[8] And, to my dad, I wish a happy 65th birthday! That's right -- my father was born on Halloween and my mother was born on 9/11.

First day on the new job went well. There are pros and cons to the switch, but overall I think that this is going to be a good thing.

Main disadvantage, of course, is the commute -- I just barely got back to Oxford in time for my ice skating lesson tonight! However, I have some ideas for helping with that. Tomorrow I bring my bicycle on the Oxford Tube, which should make the London side of the journey shorter. The eventual relocation to east Oxford should shorten the overall commute somewhat. And there are a couple of purchases that I could make to enhance the productivity of the journey.

As for the new job itself... well, that requires a longer post than I want to make tonight. Something to really go into the physics that I will be working on. Can't do that now, as I am particularly knackered and about to go collapse into bed with my dear cheshcati

Before I do, though, I want to publicly thank cheshcat and tawneypup and Darelle... all of whom were quite encouraging today. On my [sleepy] way to work this morning, Darelle sent a very sweet text message for my first day. If I had not been on the bus when I received it, I might have even started skipping! tawneypup sent multiple cheery e-mails to bolster my spirits. And those spirits weren't even low -- so that is saying something about the bouncy and beautiful goodness that is tawneypup! Sometime in the afternoon, cheshcat sent me a "first day" e-card that nearly brought a tear to my eye. It reminded me that this woman has shared my life since I was a mere slip of an undergraduate, scarcely a year after I decided that I had wanted to pursue a career in physics. She has been here for the trials and tribulations of my early courses, the insane stress of my first year in graduate school, and watched me in each and every experiment that I have collaborated on. Plus she (and resourceress edited my doctoral disseration -- all two hundred pages of it[*]! If all that weren't enough... she had dinner waiting when I got home from my first day.

Pardon the incoherency, gentle readers. I did warn that I was knackered. However, eloquent or no, I felt it important to write this entry and acknowledge that I am lucky enough to have some very special people in my life!

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[*] Indeed, the dedication in my PhD -- crafted back in 2003 -- is to cheshcat.

As most know, the Republican National Convention has been going on in Minnesota this week. By coincidence, it is being held at virtually the same time that it was in New York City four years ago[*].

As a result, it was virtually inevitable that the convention and its timing would get me thinking about the previous RNC and my involvement in the demonstrations against it. During the part of my activism that involved street protests[**], I participated in quite a few major activist demonstrations. Besides the Republican National Convention, I have taken to the streets to speak out against the likes of the World Economic Forum, the World Bank / International Monetary Fund, and the G8[***].

The RNC was different, though, for one major reason. It was there that I was unjustly arrested and held as a political prisoner for two days. It was there that I experienced "Guantanamo-on-the Hudson", the violation of my habeas corpus "rights", and the inside of the New York City "criminal justice" system.

Overall, I consider the experience to have been a good one. I learned a lot and it made a strong impression on me -- one of the strongest impressions of any experience in my adult life. I learned not only about the workings of political repression -- I also learned about power relationships and I learned about how I respond in such a virtually powerless situation.

Of course, most of the experience was unpleasant: Having my wrists cuffed behind me for three and a half hours, spending two days with virtually no sleep, laying down in the oily chemical muck that coated the floor of "Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson", getting threatened (while cuffed again!) by a "corrections" officer, watching a man that I was cuffed to in a "daisy chain" desperately try to get water before he passed out from dehydration, not being able to brush my teeth for two days (yuck!), and more. Probably the worst part of it all came from within, though. After nearly thirty hours in jail -- with nearly no sleep and very little food -- my own spirits, which I had tried to keep high from the beginning, finally cracked. When I realised that I was going to spend a second night in jail, and it seemed like nearly everybody else had already been released[****], I sunk into a bit of a depression for quite a few hours. Interestingly enough, the worst part came from within, not without. One of the lessons learned: Had I been stronger and more resolved, I could have avoided the worst part of the experience.

Being a political prisoner was not entirely unpleasant -- no thanks to the NYC Police or Corrections Departments! I actually do have many happy memories from my incarceration: Walking down a long corridor of cells upon my arrival at "Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson" whilst being cheered and applauded by hundreds of my fellow demonstrators, singing Wobbly songs in the transport vehicle whilst being moved from Guantanamo to the Tombs, making a checker set out of toilet paper and paper cups to give us something to do in our cell that involved using our brains (winning all my checker games didn't hurt, either!), calming down high tensions amongst my comrades and being told that I was "the biggest mother-f**king optimist" one of them had ever met. Not surprisingly, the best moments were near the end -- I will never forget the moment when a phone call to the People's Law Collective brought the knowledge that the National Lawyers Guild had gotten New York State Supreme Court Justice Cataldo to issue a release for all prisoners held for more than twenty-four hours. The energy change in our cell was quick and palpable! I shot out of my gloomy depression, called to an officer, and demanded to be released from the cell. It did not work, of course... but suddenly I felt a measure of power because I knew that we had to be released, and soon! Similarly, I will always remember my first moment of "freedom" upon leaving the courthouse. Thousands were gathered outside to welcome [a very tired, grungy, and dehydrated] me back with cheers. My friend Matches was in front of it all and jumped into my arms for an enormous hug! Despite my exhaustion, I stayed for several more hours to do jail support and give my emerging comrades the same fabulous reception that I have received.

Definitely a very intense experience[*****]. After five years as an activist, I put that career on hold about two years ago for various reasons. I do expect to return to it someday -- it just does not feel right to let others fight the battle for a better world without me. Right now, though, I do wish that I were in St. Paul and on the streets for the current Republican Convention...

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[*] As opposed to the Democratic National Convention, which was held much later this year than it was in the previous election cycle.

[**] Which I consider just one tool in the kit to use in the goal of, as we like to put it, "smashing the State." While I have certainly done my share of street protests, I have also been active in food & clothing re-distribution, boycotts, industrial union organising, political prisoner support, copwatching, books to prisoners programmes, and more.

[***] Sadly, I was in Argentina in 2003 during the demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the Americans meeting in Miami. To this day, I still harbor a bit of guilt and disappointment that I was not able to stand with my comrades -- particularly the incredible resourceress -- as they faced off against the brutal police oppression there. I realise that just about everyone I have ever spoken to about this thinks that I am nuts for wanting to have been amongst the rubber bullets and tear gas... but it feels like a betrayal to have let my comrades face these things without me.

[****] This was an incorrect conclusion, but there were reasons for believing it at the time from the evidence available to me.

[*****] Ironically enough, this is the first time I have discussed my arrest in any detail within this journal, as it is only recently that the legal aftermath of my case -- first the criminal trial and, after being cleared of all charges, the subsequent suit for wrongful arrest -- has been concluded.

Here ye, here ye! Let it henceforth be known that resourceress rocks!

I came home this evening to find a package from her waiting at my door. Since I was only passing through, I brought it into Skullcrusher Mountain without opening it. I did note that the customs declaration read "containers", which made me wonder.

On coming home from the lab tonight, circa eleven o'clock, I ate dinner with cheshcat and then cut open the box. It contained a complete set of Iron Man slurpee cups from 711! Oy! I did not even know such things existed... but now I have an entire set. Pretty cool, too!

resourceress is the only partner I have ever had who has shared my fondness for the Golden Avenger. Back in 2001, we frequented the Iron Man Message Board together. For my thirtieth birthday, she gave me what might be the coolest present I have ever received: A piece of original artwork, featuring old Shellhead, commissioned from my favourite Iron Man artist -- Bob Layton. She had carefully taken notes for months as I chatted on the IMMB -- tracking my favourite artists, armors, villians, et cetera. Using all this, she made a specially designed request when she commissioned the artwork. As I said, resourceress rocks! The picture hangs, framed, on my bedroom wall at the Event Horizon.

Just last week, she pointed me toward an Onion News Network section discussing the adaption of the "wildly popular" Iron Man trailer into a full length movie!

Speaking of the Armorer Avenger's upcoming movie, I am keeping fingers crossed that it bucks the odds and doesn't suck. Admittedly, it probably will be quite awful -- I predict incredible graphics and a painfully inadequate plot -- but I will touch wood and keep fingers crossed. I have quite literally been waiting for this movie for twenty years. I started collecting super-hero comic books in May 1988, at the tender young age of thirteen. It was chance that I was exposed via Iron Man... but it is likely that I would not have started my collection -- numbering well over ten thousand comic books -- with any other hero. Tony Stark and I have always had a lot in common, and he resonated with me right from the beginning. Twenty years later, to the month, I finally get to see him rendered onto the big screen.

In general, I am not a big fan of movies. I don't think I have seen one in over three months. The last one that I saw in the cinema was back in December. However, I will be seeing the Iron Man movie on opening day -- Fri May 2^nd. Oddly enough, I will be seeing it by myself, which is something that I have never done before. However, all the usual suspects to see it with -- cheshcat, gyades and, most of all, resourceress -- will be on the other side of the pond when it comes out. Doesn't matter -- after twenty years of waiting, I can cope with seeing this on my own...

Day eleven of the George Orwell Tea Challenge and, um, I have not drank any tea today! Our group usually takes tea at 11am and has a morning meeting. However, I was refilling liquid helium into the cryostat at the time and could not leave it alone. Yesterday, however, I took the advice of xirpha, polyfrog and others... and began heating the cup before making my tea in it.

Thus far, I have learned two things from the tea challenge:
One: I have learned that far more people on my friends list care about this -- and comment on it -- than I ever would have imagined.
Two: I heave learned that I must be some sort of barbaric pre-Norman savage, as I really do not taste any great difference when I do things like heating my cup or pouring the water while it is still boiling.

Three more days to go...

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Yesterday afternoon, on my lunch break, I took a walk and ran some errands. On my walk, I made my way down to The Bear, which is the pub referred to in yesterday's entry. Obsessive compulsive? Me?? Nah!

What I learned, however, is that the background to the comic that I posted is fictional. Nowhere is there a building like the one seen there that has a line of sight to the pub. I was crushed... but I got over it.

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Last night, cheshcat and I went to see the British Shakespeare Company perform As You Like It in the Wadham College Gardens.

The BSC is not to be confused with the Royal Shakespeare Company, whom cheshcat have seen several times in Stratford; nor are they to be mistaken for the Oxford Shakespeare Company, whom I have seen perform at Wadham College before with cheshcat (Midsummer Nights Dream, 2007) and resourceress (Taming of the Shrew and The Importance of Being Earnest, 2006). I seem to be collecting Shakespeare Companies.

In any case, the BSC is specifically an open air Shakespeare company. Open air theatre is very popular in England in the summertime, or in times that purport to be summer (like now). Of course, with outdoor theatre, the weather becomes a factor... and, indeed, last night was both windy and had intermittent bouts of rain. However, the actors did a fantastic job, even with the weather acting against them. My only regret is that, because they are in Oxford for such a short time, I will not get to see them perform Henry V with the same cast.

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Speaking of cryostats, as I did up above, I want to very happily announce that the current cooldown of the Kelvinox-400 cryostat is the most successful run that I have had to date.

From a personal level, I can say that this may be the first time I have done the entire cooldown myself (since my graduate student, JI, is on holiday).

From the level of the cryostat itself, I can comment that our resistor thermometer has the highest resistance I have ever seen, indicating the lowest temperature that I have ever obtained. The previous record from the dynamic duo of JI & Yours Truly was the cooldown that I started before going to the States. JI reported to me that our thermometer reached about 32 kOhms of resistance. Since we had a radioactive cobalt-60 source inside at the time, we were able to use nuclear orientation thermometry to tell us that the temperature was approximately 6.3mK -- yes, that is 0.0063 degrees above absolute zero! Now the thermometer reads 33.3 kOhms, so I would imagine that we are at five point something millikelvin. Besides a record low temperature, the pressures on the mixing circuit, which cycles the coolant, are very low. This is good, as some previous cooldowns were successful... but had to be cut short from rising internal pressure.

From the data level, which is the most important, I am now collecting data that is worthy of analysis! This is, of course, the most exciting part! Yesterday and today, I have spent more time sitting in front of a computer playing with analysis than I have working with hardware. While I enjoy hardware work, this is a very welcome change for me! It's all about balance!

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Speaking of summertime, as I also did up above, I want to go on record as being terribly envious of all of my friends in the States. Why? Because you got to experience summer! Here in England, the high temperatures have generally been in the 60s and it has been perpetually cloudy and rainy. Many people I know who are natives have told me that this has been the coldest and wettest summer that they have ever seen. Lucky us, I guess. Of course, last year we had a heat wave and experienced the hottest July on record. So now I have gotten two extremes in two years. Nonetheless, I am glad that I spent a month in the States, so that I actually got to have a sampling of summer.

Now then, with that said, I should also note that the sun is actually visible for the first time in well over a week. The temperature appears to have broken 70 degrees... and the forecast seems to think that it will stay this way for the weekend. So I will touch wood and hope that maybe, just maybe, there is a little bit of summer on the way. Meanwhile, I sat outside for awhile this afternoon and practiced, on imaginary handbells, the part of the 3 and 4 bells in Plain Bob Minor. In just over an hour, I have my weekly lesson at St. Giles, followed by our usual rehearsal on tower bells.

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Finally, speaking of the weekend, as I also just did, this coming weekend is a bank holiday weekend. Essentially, it is the same end-of-summer holiday that the serves the same purpose as the false Labor Day in the States (except, of course, without the political ulterior motive that accompanies false Labor Day).

Anyway, to celebrate, cheshcat and I are leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend a long weekend -- plus a couple of vacation days -- exploring Yorkshire. We will be staying in the city of York, but taking excursions outward to see more of Yorkshire than only the one city. I am very much looking forward to this trip! Besides, as a native of New York... isn't it time I finally paid a visit to Old York?

My beloved resourceress is back in Boston again. Yesterday, we shared a late morning, not leaving the comfort of my bedroom until after noon. We then had a mellow afternoon, getting a large breakfast at Butterfield's, reading Iron Man: Hypervelocity, and hitting a yarn store. Eventually, though, the time came for her lovely trip to end and for me to bring her to the airport.

After returning from Midway, I had intended to make a cameo appearance at crim_ferret's birthday party in Naperville. However, I was starting to feel a little under the weather and I was all-too-aware that I needed to wake up at 6am today. So I ended up staying in instead, and will wish Crim a virtual Happy Birthday (to go with the one that I conveyed in person on Wednesday).

Last night was the first time that I have slept alone in the Event Horizon a very long time. In fact, I cannot recall the last time that I slept here with only the cats for company. gyades is still in England, and polymorphism was in Wisconsin. So it was just me and the three fuzzy black girls. It was nice, actually, and reminded me of the earliest days of the Event Horizon, in that tiny sliver of time when it was only me who lived here. That time, in early November 2003, now feels like it was just last week and also like it was a lifetime ago.

Six o'clock came far too soon, as it always does. I drove into the city and loaded my gear onto the R/V Aquatica for my SCUBA dives. We went out about thirteen miles on Lake Michigan, with the clear weather providing some spectacular views of the skyline. Eventually, we suited up in neoprene and go ready to go down to wreck of the Macinac, about sixty to eighty feet below the surface. The weather was fantastic and the water was warmer than I had expected. Must have been the thick (7mm) wetsuit, because I am told that it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit down there... and I still remember freezing during my test dives off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in April 1994! The wreck was nifty enough, though visibility was low in the water today. I did not bring my camera, but my dive buddy did... so hopefully he will send some pictures that are worthy of posting.

Although Lake Michigan was not as spiffy a dive site as some of the other places I have gone down (e.g. Key West, Hawaii, Antigua), it was still good to get back underwater again after nearly two years -- last dive was in Key West on August 11^th< 2005! And it was also good to finally get into Lake Michigan -- it is somewhat embarrassing that I lived here for nearly three years and never went diving locally!

Quick update before bed.

resourceress flew in from Boston early yesterday morning. After picking her up at the airport, we got breakfast and then went back to the Event Horizon to spend some quality alone time together. In the afternoon, we went for a hike in the Morton Arboretum. In the evening, we went hot tubbing.

Today we drove up north to spend the day at Hurricane Harbor. I do so love spending a day communing with water. It was been nearly two years since my last visit and, in that time, they installed a new slide-like contraption that has replaced the "Wahoo Racers" as my favourite thing in the park. This new thing is very big, and is known as the "Tornado". Very awesome.

My legs are very sore from climbing stairs all day in my bare feet. However, it is a good sore and was well worth it. Upon returning to the Event Horizon, we picked up polymorphism and went to get some dinner. And now I shall go collapse.

This is working out to be a pretty good vacation. I just hope that the excellent weather holds out until after my SCUBA dive on Sunday.

After winning the GO game yesterday afternoon, I drove downstate to the Bloomington-Normal area to visit The Kiddo[*]. He completed his Masters degree in May and, thus, will be leaving Normal next month to begin working for Google. Therefore, yesterday's trip was most likely my last visit to that area.

When I arrived, we went to get lunch in town. Then we picked up The Kiddo's girlfriend and went to play miniature golf. I won, with the low score of 54 points. He came in second with 59, then his girlfriend came in last -- despite a very strong start -- with 63. This is revenge for the game we played last summer, when The Kiddo won handedly. The agreement was that the loser had to buy ice cream for the winner, so I enjoyed the spoils of mini-golf as the sun went down. Then it was off to the bowling alley. We played three games; my scores were 145, 196, and 139. I was particularly impressed with my second game, as I marked in every frame -- twice in the tenth. Not sure if I have ever done that before; if so, it has certainly been a long time. I did, however, slip once and through my first gutter ball in years. Although I made the spare to close the frame, it still cost me the chance to break 200 for the first time in a very long time.

After the bowling alley closed, we dropped his girlfriend off and The Kiddo and I went back to his apartment for a few hours. Somehow in that time, we ended up reminiscing about an obscure cartoon that we used to watch, over twenty years ago, called Kidd Video. This cartoon was so unknown that, some time ago, we began to wonder if we had imagined it. Although I have the whole second season on video tape [somewhere], we found some episodes on-line and watched a couple of them.

At about 3am, I left to drive home. This was probably a mistake. Within twenty minutes, the skies opened up and I was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm. Eventually, I pulled into a rest area to nap while the storm raged. The net effect of this was that I did not get back to the Event Horizon until 7:30am. I promptly collapsed into bed and did not rise until noon.

This afternoon, I paid a visit to my old place of employment, Fermilab. It was my first time there since October, and it was good to see people again. I had several nice chats, especially with JHY -- who I have known since 2000, when we were graduate students together on Super-Kamiokande. I also got a tour of an interesting experiment that an old colleague is now running. Besides enjoying these visits, there is also professional networking value in returning to the lab.

In the evening, I joined crim_ferret and unclevlad and datahawk and wyldekyttin[**] for dinner in Naperville. The food -- a pick-your-own stir fry -- was very good and very different from my usual fare in England. Even better, though, was the conversation. During the meal, another storm broke loose. This merited several breaks from the dinner table to stand outside and admire its fury more closely. When dinner was over, we returned to their house to continue enjoying the good company.

Now I am home once again, and about to collapse into bed once more. resourceress will be flying here in the morning, and I am ever so excited to be seeing here again for the first time since January! Not that the vacation has been substandard thus far, but I think that the rest of this week shall be much fun!

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[*] For those who do not know, The Kiddo has been my nickname for my brother since long before LiveJournal existed.

[**] And one other member of their tribe whose LJ name I do not remember.