I’ll be posting an MFF report of sorts sometime soon – I admit so much of the con was a blur for me, so don’t expect anything particularly detailed. There’s the annual Registration report coming too, but that may be a week or two.

So what has happened in the meantime? Well, on Tuesday I started my new job. Like a new job at any pharmaceutical company, the first week or so is spent in training and orientation. Boring PowerPoint presentations and then document after document there I’m never going to remember. This coming week I’ll hopefully get a computer at my desk and can start in on some of the computer-based training as well. Owing to FDA regulations and company policies there’s some fun new restrictions: my cell phone has to stay out in the car during the day, and no food or drink (except water) outside of the cafeteria. But hey – at least there’s a cafeteria. It’s going to take some getting used to, but it seems like a good and challenging gig. It’s still up in the air whether this is a three- or six-month-to-hire gig, but as much as they’re paying me hourly, I’m all for stretching out the contract portion of the job as long as possible.

I’ve worked two days there so far; both times the morning commute has been smooth – about 40-50 minutes in, in clear traffic. On Tuesday, it took me two hours to get home. Wednesday was bad, though – the pre-holiday traffic had the roads choked and traffic completely snarled. I chose the less stroke-inducing option and drive 25 minutes north to Antioch, where I enjoyed some lovely conversation with roho, genet, and shadowstalkerw followed by a tasty dinner at Las Vegas Restaurant. The downside to all of this is that takaza, who was supposed to be on vacation until tomorrow, got a frantic call from his boss and went in to work at about 1 PM. I took my leave right after dinner and drove down the now-blissfully-uncrowded interstate to pick up Dan from work; he got out of there at around 9 PM. We indulged his craving for Long John Silver’s chicken planks on the way home, so at least he got dinner.

Thanksgiving was quite pleasant; we had a late start but we didn’t need to be over at Dan’s mom’s place until 3 PM. Or so we thought, until we got a call at around 12:30 PM saying the food was ready. Ack! We hustled out the door and drove the hour and twenty minutes to her place, where we enjoyed a HUGE meal of a roasted 14 lb. turkey, stuffing, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, mashed rutabagas and carrots, sweet potatoes, corn, biscuits and apple pie and ice cream for dessert. All for just the three of us. Um, yeah – that was a heck of a lot of food, but it was all quite delicious! Needless to say, we took home a ton of leftovers. The post- meal digestive torpor was spent watching a bit of TV and poking around on the net on my laptop. With Dan’s family, just being together is enough – not a lot of conversation, just spending time around each other. It’s radically different from what I grew up with, but it works for them so there’s nothing wrong with that.

Friday we didn’t do a lot. Dan was feeing under the weather, so we pretty much just stayed in, ate leftovers, and lazed around. It was delightful.

On Saturday I got a bit of clothes shopping done, then we met siriuswolfstar and simbalion up in Evanston at The Lucky Platter for a tasty late lunch, followed by a viewing of Casino Royale. I found the movie to be a good 30-45 minutes too long, and I’d give it more of a 70% rating, as opposed to Rotten Tomatoes’ 94%. Daniel Craig is some damned nice eye candy, though! More shirtless scenes, dangit!

And today? Well, once Dan wakes up we’ll need to fetch his car from his employer so he has a way to get to work tomorrow. And hey, that’ll be an excuse to get out and enjoy what is likely to be the last decent day of the season. Hmm, and now to forage through the leftovers for a bit of lunch…