Oh hey, it looks like I've finally decompressed enough to trigger the --verbose flag again.

  • FUDCON's Giant Morass Of Fedora People Checking In On Friday Evening which involved a ton of random hugs* and "oh hey! It's great to finally meet you in person!" exclamations.
  • Also, and boy have I been missing out. Here I had two and we stayed up late talking about gaming and interface design and weddings (for all three, my role was mostly to go "oh that's how people think about these things, okay!" and be really intrigued).
  • Breakfast with John Poelstra to learn more about this mysterious thing called "project management" (which begins making more sense as I learn more about it). Consumption of ridiculous amounts of yogurt.
  • Being able to hang out with Sebastian Dziallas in Boston for nearly a week, which involved such adventures as failing to find an open late-night Starbucks and instead driving in circles around an intersection on Commonwealth Ave. to photograph a street sign, watching Traz's play (which had swords! and swordfighting!), napping in shifts to sleep off FUDCon bus-lag while still not being late for anything, getting first-graders ridiculously excited about Physics, desperately trying (successfully) to stay under budget at Newbury Comics (my problem: an every-album-by-the-Beatles box collection - his problem: the Live Aid concert that happened before either of us was born) and way too many other things to write here.
  • Caroline is an amazing "yes, apply to education grad school!" cheerleader; I have a draft Statement of Purpose now. That was fast. I need to be faster. And I need to ask for rec letters... now. WOO!
  • Chopping carrots while singing Christmas carols with my aunt and cousins - just one of those simple, happy, "everything is as it ought to be" moments.
  • Rediscovering my stash of golden monkey tea, which is now totally gone. However, the raspberry earl grey is still here, as is the tin of hot cocoa mix to steep said earl grey in.
  • Amazing risotto at Chris and Leslie's, which featured an absolutely gorgeous engagement ring. Congratulations to the two of you!
  • Reflecting on both how big my Boston cousins have gotten, and how young they are. It's hard to explain, and I'm told this feeling is infinitely more intense if they're your actual kids. I've just... aside from my brother, who's very close to me in age, I've never seen anyone grow up before, but I've been here for 6 years now and that's a substantial portion of both their lives (all Audrey's life, really). And they're still growin'.
  • Sashimi bibimbap with Liz Kneen which is not unrelated to my Suddenly Much More Full Than It Was Before calendar (mm, weekend hiking... must get snow pants). Gosh, it's good to see people again.

*YAY I CAN DO RANDOM HUGS NOW! Well, these are folks I already know, just haven't met in person, and... look, I'm celebrating forward progress, okay?

I fly back to Chicago for the holidays on Sunday night, and will likely live (read: work) in the library for the next 2 days before the holidays begin in earnest. There's no place like home for the holidays - although I've never spent the winter holidays away from family, so I have no actual firsthand verification as to the truth of that statement; there's no exhaustive test that could confirm it as the number of places I can monitor exceeds the number of places that may theoretically be similar to home during the holidays (a measurement and threshold for similarity as well as a decision on what date range constitutes "the holidays" - what timezone do you go by, etc - would be needed, and such), though a single counterexample would be sufficient to invalidate it.

...okay, who hit the "engineer" switch on my brain? It must be the 4 pots of tea.