Category Archives: mom

Hi! Remember me?

Wow. This may be the longest I’ve gone without a substantive public post to LiveJournal since I started this journal. What has happened since I last updated? Here’s the short version:

  • Midwest FurFest happened. It was a great convention, though it was the usual blur for me. It was my second and final year as convention chairman (MFF has a tradition of two-year terms for its chairmen). I didn’t accomplish everything I would have liked, but I feel that I was able to keep the convention on its upward trend and overall people seem to be very happy. How do I know? Well, we’ve got this nifty survey up, and if you take it you can win a free room night at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare! My biggest personal regret from the convention is that it sounds like there was one hell of a party in our suite on Sunday night but I was just so exhausted and done with socializing that I wound up taking a nice relaxing bath and going to bed early. Oh, and rest assured that I will not be disappearing from Midwest Furfest staff! I will be taking over the position of Hotel Liaison for MFF 2010, just as we’re going into a new hotel. Whee!
  • Thanksgiving happened. We were pleased to welcome Roho, Genet, Bander, Shawn, Shadowstalker, and Tarin over for Thanksgiving dinner, with a delicious turkey made by takaza‘s mom. The food was delicious, and the company was fantastic! Incidentally, if you were at Midwest FurFest, you might have met Dan’s mom – she was Staff Liaison, and her job was to go around the convention and make sure that folks who were stuck in one location got an occasional snack and drink and had everything they needed. She was a tremendous help during the convention and I’m so glad she was able to make it!
  • Dan’s birthday happened. We rounded up a bunch of folks and went out for dinner at Wildfire Restaurant, which was really excellent. Dan ordered the martini flight (!) and even drank a few of them. Great steaks, and really tasty desserts.
  • A doctor’s visit happened. I found out that what I thought was carpal tunnel is in fact tendonitis. This led to a nice cortisone shot (ow) and orders to wear an arm brace for two weeks. I’ll be living on Advil for a while, I think.
  • And finally, a brief visit down to Urbana happened. mirkowuff‘s neighborhood revived the “Candlestick Lane” tradition on short notice, so he threw a small short-notice party to celebrate. We had a lovely time and got to see some great old friends and meet some new folks as well. It was a very pleasant weekend.

So now we’re pretty much caught up. What’s coming up? Well, we’re going to dog-sit this weekend, and hopefully visit either Evanston or Milwaukee to go to The Spice House and do some restocking. We’re flying down to South Carolina for Christmas. And of course there’s Wuffmeet coming up, for which we really need to start making specific plans for food. December is a trainwreck, as always, and it doesn’t look like January will be much better! But we’re having fun and all is right with the world, regardless.

Birthday Surprise 2008: Success!

Greetings from South Carolina!

I had posted about this under friends-only posts before because I was planning a surprise…and it worked! On Friday I left work at 11:30 AM and drove north to Milwaukee. As I was driving I called my mom and wished her a happy birthday, and apologized for not being there to help celebrate it. I told her I was driving to lunch as we chatted, and then that I had to go because I was “approaching the restaurant”. Actually, I was approaching the airport.

I caught a flight on Midwest Airlines from Milwaukee to Atlanta (on a 717, nice comfy wide leather seats, decent food provided – note to linnaeus, their food is designed by the executive chef at Mader’s!). Once I got to Atlanta I picked up my rental car, the most stripped-down Chevy Cobalt you have ever seen. No power windows, locks, or anything, and no cruise control. Ugh. Anyway, I drove out through crowded but not crazy traffic and arrived in Anderson, SC, in almost exactly two hours. I pulled up and surprised the heck out of my mom when I got out of the car!

This has been a lovely and relaxing weekend so far. My sister and her two sons are here as well, and we’ve been having fun swimming, playing video games, and such. For dinner we went to Liberty Hall Inn and Cafe. Their website didn’t offer a lot of information, but my sister recommended them. It was a great choice – the dinner was excellent, and our server, Ashlyn, was a real hoot! For dessert we went out to the deck and had a good enough time that one of the other diners came out to see what all the laughing was about, because “y’all are having a lot more fun than my group.” After dinner we came home and swam some in the pool and relaxed. It was a very enjoyable evening.

This morning we had kicked around ideas of driving around a bit and maybe even venturing into the North Carolina mountains. Unfortunately the weather is pretty lousy, so we’re going to stay near the house instead. After I shower, Mom and I are going to go pick up some breakfast from Panera, and this afternoon I’ll probably play my nephews in a few rounds of Boom Blox.

I’ll be here until tomorrow; my flight from Atlanta leaves at 7:55 PM. I’ll probably head out early in the afternoon and kill some time around Atlanta before going to the airport. Maybe drop off the car and jump downtown on MARTA? We’ll see. For now, I’m off to shower, and then breakfast!