So far in July I have:
-- Attended (and helped run) Conterpoint 2016
-- Gone on a 3-day business trip to Chicago
-- Hosted my in-laws for a weekend
-- Came down with a cold (possibly delayed con crud)
-- Gone on an overnight business trip to Chicago
-- Gone on a 3-day business trip to Casper, Wyoming

I believe I have discovered what it takes to achieve a state of complete exhaustion.

I'm going to bed now.

Despite an always-welcome visit to New Orleans and a decent Philcon, this still hasn't been a week I would particularly like to repeat.

( And not just because a business trip and con tried to occupy the same spaceCollapse )

I am such a klutz. Or just brain-dead after a business trip. Or maybe both. I managed to lose my glasses in the Rockville Metro parking lot yesterday. I'd switched to my sunglasses on the short drive over, then stuck the case with my regular glasses in the pocket of my vest after I got out of the car. Somewhere between my car and the platform, the case fell out of the pocket.

Two days later they haven't turned up at either station kiosk. [Expletive deleted]

I have a five-year old pair that luckily was stashed in my office desk (following the third time I left the case with my regular specs in the car) and work reasonably well. But there was a reason I got a new pair last year.

To add insult to injury, the ophthalmologist I used last year is no longer on my vision plan. But I'm too busy at the moment to seek out a new one (and I like this one), so I'll just bite the bullet and go back to the same place. I'll get a few $ back since I do have some out-of-network coverage.

Still sucks though.

A slightly belated Shanah Tovah to my Jewish friends. Got back from the FSGW Getaway a little while ago. Good weekend, even if I spent most of it battling mold allergies. Might have a cold emerging on top of that. Blrg.

Just a quick post since I left many of you hanging like snot from my nose. (Now there's an image...) Got back around lunchtime today from my week-long trip to Dallas for another round of national building code hearings. I was originally supposed to get back tonight (in fact, would have been in the air over southern VA as of posting time), but things wrapped a day early. So I switched to the first DCA-bound American flight of the morning even though I had to get up at stupid o'clock to do it. If you're surprised I'm still awake, I napped on the plane and for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Still expect to sleep well tonight though.

My friends from The Land of Emerald Green will be amused I had dinner last night with a large group that included three folks from the City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development.

Finally shook most of the cold bug around Thursday, a week or so after it started. Still have been a bit congested, but that's as much a combination of dry hotel air and my normal low-level allergies as anything else. But seemed in decent singing shape tonight, so we should be all set for Balticon this weekend.

Speaking of Balticon, we have another music-packed program to offer this year. In addition to a pair of concerts from Team Sutton, taking the stage will be the FuMP (specifically Rob Balder, Devo Spice, Worm Quartet and Insane Ian) and Sassafrass, as well as Dr. SETI, Roberta Rogow, and Glyn Collinson. On the New Media side of things, we have concerts from Phil Rossi and Chooch Schubert, John Anealio, Jonah Knight, and Norm Sherman. Plus the Medieval Dance, a Steampunk Dance, and Hula-Hooping. The program features an intensive two-day lyric writing workshop with Bill & Brenda. Attendance is limited to 8 people; sign up at the Information Desk. There will also be a percussion workshop. And of course, the rest of the programming Balticon is noted for, including its literary, science, and New Media tracks. Hope to see some of you there!

For the third year in a row, we managed to make Boskone gavel-to-gavel. It's nice working for a company with fairly generous PTO. I also managed to get over the cold I had the week before the con just in time for the trip up.

( And we thought Chicago was the windy city...Collapse )

In other news, I noticed about mid-morning today that the bruise/strain/muscle pull at the base of my thumb that I inflicted on myself either just before or on the way home from Boskone (I think the latter) and aggravated during Saturday night's 3LF gig, causing me to revert to beginner-level strum patterns for last night's practice, had healed/worked itself out and my hand was no longer sore. Yay.

It's been a little over a week since my last post; probably time for an update. As you may recall, I was complaining about lower back pain in my last post. Whatever I did down had worked itself out by last Thursday, which means it was probably just a pulled or strained muscle. On the other hand, my left shoulder now hurts, pretty much right in the middle of my shoulder blade. Ah well, I still have plenty of cyclobenzaprine.

( BRUUUCE!Collapse )

( An Evening with Mr. RogersCollapse )

( Solar DecathlonCollapse )

Next up on the social agenda is Philcon. I am supposedly doing a bunch of things including a concert set and a Song Sequitur. They haven't told me what time anything is yet, or if I'm doing any non-filk program items. Guess I'll find out when I get to the con and see the pocket program. Hopefully I haven't been scheduled for anything that's before my planned arrival sometime Friday evening.

Back from the building code hearings. Actually, I got home on Friday (late), but we had the_sheryl's parents in town for the weekend. So between that and other things I'm just getting around to posting now.

Apologies to all my Baltimore friends who I promised to hook up with during the week. Things just didn't quite work out. The hearings didn't end until 9pm most days, so I basically staggered back to my hotel room and collapse. The one night things ended earlier I took a member of $EMPLOYER out to dinner.

I fared pretty well at the hearings. By my count the committee decisions went the way I wanted about 75% of the time. Included in that were some key successes in the area of wind-resistant design and construction.

On the down side, I've done something bad to my lower back. It started when I woke up last Wednesday morning and my back was very stiff. By the end of Wednesday I was hurting enough I started popping Excedrin. I haven't had a good night of sleep in a week; I keep waking up sometime between 3-4am in enough pain it's hard to find a comfortable position and get back to sleep. I finally went to the doctor yesterday and have the good drugs now (and some stretching exercises). Hopefully they will help, although they didn't do much last night.

Since my f-list probably needs a break from election chatter, I will return to my usual role as the plucky comic relief.

Apparently, our friends to the north have discovered that those of us who enjoy a nice cold pint every now and then may be helping our bodies ward off cancer. Studies conducted over the past decade show that a natural product found in hops (a key flavouring agent used in beer) packs a powerful punch for both the prevention and treatment of certain types of cancer, says Dr. Jonathan Page, a research officer at the NRC Plant Biotechnology Institute in Saskatoon..

Unfortunately, the chemical in question, xanthohumol, tends to burn off in the brewing process, but according to the article some European brewers have found a way to add the chemical back in at the end of the process.

OK you home-brewers out there, get working! ;-)