aroraborealis

I don't remember which of you it was who gave me the wine bottle puzzle thingy, but I need to tell you that I've finally found the perfect use for it!

One of my VPs won a bottle of wine in a trivia contest this week, but he was on his way to the airport and only carrying on luggage, so he couldn't bring it with me. Since I'm the Minister of Fun, he gave it to me.

So I stuck the hard-won wine into the puzzle, struggled with it a while to get it all set up, and it's now sitting on the edge of my desk, which is located in a spot that LOTS of people walk by.

Within five minutes, three people had gathered around it to start trying to figure it out.

Success!

The phrase of the day is "cheese tower building competition".

Party details TBA.

SO. You know what's awesome? In-flight wireless. Seriously, there are some parts of living in the future that are really friggin' great. I wonder if I try to book my next Virgin flight while on the plane if I get an extra good deal?

[Brief pause.]

No. Oh, well.

Anyway, so I had this vacation planned. And then it was nearly ruinedcanceled due to Virgin America giving in to the hype about last week's big storm. Thanks to the not-panicked thinking of spike and moominmolly, I ended up, instead, on a train to NYC last Wednesday, and then on a plane to SF a day late, but well within time to rescue the vacation.

At this point, there are way too many people I want to see in the Bay Area each time I visit, so I inevitably end up missing a lot of them (you), especially on these shorter long-weekend trips. I'll be back in May for a longer visit and if I missed you this time, I'll hope to see you then!

As for the day I didn't get arrested ... I don't think I was actually in danger of being arrested so much as getting a ticket/fine, but it turns out that the Oakland Parks and Recreation have a more constrained definition of "nudity" than I do (or than Massachusetts, for that matter). Pics in a later entry...

I'm sad for vacation to be coming to a close, but thankful for the convenience of cross-country travel, and looking forward to being home.

Dear Internet,

Yesterday, I took a vacation. Instead of going to work, I drove (well, passenged) 5.5 hours to Montreal with moominmolly and Natalie, spent about the same amount of time kicking around the city and looking at bugs, then drove back to Boston, arriving home shortly before 2am.

While we were away from Boston, we:

* ate tasty beef jerky
* discussed major and minor life events
* cracked jokes
* giggled
* watched a lot of vidoes (actually, just N did this)
* were hassled by a Canadian border guard about the possibility that M was kidnapping N out of the country
* were impressed by Canada's careful security procedures ("Do you know this woman?" "Yes." "How long have you known her?" "Six or seven years." "Is she telling the truth?" "Yes!" "Okay, you can go ahead.")
* drove by an extraordinarily stinky sewer truck
* navigated Montreal largely without the help of our magical phones
* discussed making a lampshade out of cockroach wings
* ate a delicious meal at a restaurant with amazingly bad service
* bought pain killers that are not available in the US
* dropped off a box on lightcastle's doorstep
* drove around in well-signed circles trying to get back on the highway
* panicked about a lost passport
* unlost the passport
* took a wrong turn at nowhere and therefore took a different route home
* got really tired

It was great.

Next time I go to Montreal, though, I think I'd like to spend a night there.

Fun. Fun fun fun fun fun. Thank you, world, for fun. Fun!

Deep fun. Frivolous fun. Belly-laugh fun. Flitting about fun. People fun. Alone fun. Intoxicated fun. Sober fun. Literary fun. Snarky fun. Group fun. Exploratory fun. Comfortable fun. Media fun. Creative fun. Boring fun (yes, it exists). City fun. Country fun. Wild fun. Natural fun. Unnatural fun (hello!). New fun. Old fun. You fun. Me fun. Funny fun. Whispering fun. Stealth fun. Brilliant fun. Fun.