Observations

Backstory: Last Tuesday, Leah drove with Alison and Tony (my niece and her husband) back to Utah, where they will go to school. They were great houseguests and their soups will be missed. So last week Leah was hanging out with Robin and the Armstrongs. I stayed back and worked. On Friday I flew to Utah, Saturday hung out in Utah, yesterday drove the 750 or so miles from Salt Lake City to LAX, then LAX to home in Moorpark.

I’m way behind on phone calls with a few colleagues. I will catch up today and tomorrow.

I’m late mentioning this, but the security requirements doled out by the Transportation Security Agency are mindless and stupid and arbitrary. I don’t even think about them anymore. Put my shoes in a bin? Okay, fine. Keep my paperwork in my hand? Okay. Hand carry my bag over to the security screeners? Okay. Bah.

Southwest Airlines is more like a bus than an airline. I actually kind of like that.

I arrived to snowfall, and impressive driving by Dooce and co-piloting by Chuck and Leahpeah. I was happy to arrive safely, and even happier to end the night with conversation and a nightcap. Then, precious sleep.

Incidentally, this is what happens to the aggregate traffic on my hosting account when Leah gets Dooced. In case you can’t tell that’s about a quadrupling of our aggregate bandwidth usage. Luckily, we could sustain that. But if we have more growth like that I’ll need to look at another upgrade. Still, Leah’s site has stayed up like a champ.

Dooced!

The rings Leah made look just as good in person. Does she have a future in lapidary arts and jewelry-making? Who can say? She is a person who takes to creative projects with aplomb and seemingly, with ease. I’m not sure if she’d call it easy. But she paints, takes photos, draws, watercolors, sews, knits, makes jewelry, beads and those are just the ones off the top of my head!

Saturday we hung out with Los tres Armstrongs and had a lovely time. Included, much talk of Disney Princesses and Dora the Explorer and her friends and wondrous chilling out. Then, sushi with adult conversation. Nothing Jon Deal has to say in this post is true except maybe the participants, but it was nice meeting him and his wife. I got kudos for driving in snow. Bah, I’ve driven in snow before! I’m a big boy! I can do it! Mooooooooooooom! But seriously, it felt pretty manly to man a snow scraper for the first time in years.

Sunday the pioneer children drove and drove and drove. It was a good trip once we got through the weather in Salt Lake City and southward. Leah was happy once we hit about St. George. No snow on the ground, we washed the car, we gassed up, we bought drive-thru tater tots.

Sidenote: If Leah is going to order at a drive-thru, the order is going to get wrong. It doesn’t matter who does the talking (me) — they are apt to “forget” we said “tater tots” and think we said “french fries.” Also, fry sauce and mints!

Then we drove, and then we almost got by Las Vegas (good only as the place we got married) but then I had to urinate, and at the stop I chose, the AM/PM Mini Mart and Gas Station was CLOSED. Like, concrete barricades. Like, shut down. And yes, we had just seen the sign off the highway saying “AM/PM MINI MART NEXT EXIT: Last Chance to Pee!” I am not making that up. That’s a true fact, and yet, they were closed. Then we escaped, but not before making a left turn to get back on the freeway, and diligently following the the dotted white line for the turn lane onto the service road for the freeway. Problem: Leah suddenly saying “Uh, those headlights are pointed in our direction.” I said, “uh, yes they are” — then I changed lanes as far right as possible. That dotted line was representing Las Vegas, and that’s when we realized that LAS VEGAS WAS TRYING TO KILL US. We politely declined and got gas and relived ourselves and got coffee in Primm, Nevada. That’s when we realized that we don’t like Nevada at all, whatsoever. I don’t think it likes us either.

Then we came further south on the 15 to the 10 so we could go to LAX, and I don’t remember the 10 freeway being so complicated. About every 10 minutes I was choosing to stay on the 10 and this required lane changes, at least that’s how it felt. I was not impressed. Eventually, after 12 hours of driving, we got home, and collapsed in heaps.

Now, the workweek begins!

Oh, also, Chuck and Leta and Jon and Dooce are every bit as charming as you might suppose. We are glad of their generous hospitality. Also, the conversations about hosting, WordPress, Drupal and whatnot were awesome. I think Leah likes using the cameras of others, too:

Leah shoots with Doocecam

I had a great weekend. I am very tired.

Week, here I come!

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