November Newsings

October was a pretty full month. First week was spent both sick and packing up for the planned move-in to the new loft on the 8th, but... no sign-off from the fire marshal on the alarm system, so we couldn't move our bodies in -- just boxes.

Then half a week trying to recover, get well enough to fly off to InterPride in Minneapolis, while camping out on a sofa bed. Minneapolis was even warmer than San Francisco, thankfully, since I'd opted to leave the bulky winter coat at home. Both workshops went over very, very well. Jack and I presented Advanced Parades -- and the attendees asked us to extend another 90 minutes. What with the skill the two of us possess, I think we should do this professionally, at the city level. Though small, the ageism workshop was very informative, and contained some great discussion.

Had fun meeting up with Kia and Kelly, and a bunch of players, at Grumpy's, where I ordered way too much food for the masses, because I was hungry! The planned trip to UMinn's Library for the opening of Gene Trotter's history section was an hour late and the hors d'oeuvres were mostly sweet. At the dinner hour. And this wasn't the first time we've run into that. Savory, folks, savory!

Spent the night catching up with family friends just outside the city, where one of their dogs snatched my fun, colorful, loopy yarn scarf I paid a whopping $7 for, at Wal-Mart, the night I went up to buy a bigger suitcase. They now have a new, nicely shredded, pull toy.

At the end of the conference I caught a flight to St. Louis. Gary was nice enough to offer me a place to stay in his new digs, and I finally got to tour Simu and meet a bunch of people I only know from the back channel! I also bought Aaron "Cupcake" Standridge a Stoli at dinner, a final pay-up from all the help he's given me and such, over the years. Got to see some of the pre-art for HJ, although it's come a long way since, and one of the designers working on a scene. Mischief, Melissa's and Matt's new pup, is so very cute. One of the dogs at the office is actually named "Fugly" -- poor thing!

With the loan of Gary's car I was able to spend several hours down in Frenchtown, the totally cute and pre-Civil War section of St. Charles, along the Missouri River. I've always loved being among architecture from that time period, it's part of why I loved living in New England. So much more character and detail than today's little boxes. That's why I'm also moving into a 100+ year-old cotton mill that's been converted to lofts. You wouldn't believe what we can't touch, paint, or deface in any way, given it's a registered building. To thank Gary, I found a cute, grapevine basket, complete with handle, that I filled with some homemade cinnamon apple potpourri.

Dinner at Vivian's Vineyard was quite the adventure, and I enjoyed meeting Pete/Ozias and his wife Maggie, as well as many others -- although, I'd wished we'd been all at one table. I sorta suck at socializing since I'm inherently introverted and it takes a lot (or at least one drink) to get me to be more extroverted. Sushi with Elonka, Jeff, Jim, and Gary the next night was a real feast too. Yeah I know, I don't come off introverted on the back channel of the game!

Back home to sleeping on a sofa bed and sorting out 13 mid-sized UHaul boxes of crap, to see what I was actually going to take to the loft. Still no move into the new place! Compromise by sleeping on an air mattress (ugh... my back...) in an empty loft space, in my new landlord's home building, while they finish our suite. Supposedly the last sign off happened today, but I haven't heard a thing yet, so moving over tomorrow night is probably nixed.

One month and counting...