Posts Filed in the ‘Life in General’ Category
Updated: 06 Mar 2010 10:19 am by Ron
Filed: Life in General
… as in I have no voice. Never short on things to say, but I just can’t get them out.
I’ve been fighting a cold/sore throat/cough and now sinus infection for the past week and a half and it has now taken my voice. I’m on a second round of (stronger) meds to try to clear up this mess, but the doc said a minimum of 48 hours of “complete vocal rest”. To top it off, I am scheduled to be on a plane to DC tomorrow morning for the better part of a week of project meetings and a Wednesday morning presentation. All of which should be interesting, to say the least. And I’m not excited by the thought of getting on an airplane feeling like this…
It also makes being with Li interesting, as I’m pretty sure she’s not quite aware of why I’m not talking. She insists on whispering to me, but she’s very snuggly right now so she must have some sense that I really don’t feel very good even if she doesn’t understand why Daddy isn’t talking. Lots of nonverbal going on… plus this way she gets to read to me.
Updated: 05 Feb 2010 06:08 am by Ron
Filed: Life in General
Tagged: Deb • Li • truth
Scene I: Deb and Li are at the local public library. Deb recognizes a friend named Steve, who comes over. Deb introduces him to Li.
Deb: “Li, this is Steve.”
Li (looking a little puzzled, to Steve): “You are not a monkey.”
Steve (pauses, lacking any context for such a statement, and replies): “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me today.”
The background for this one is that Deb and Li were just returning a book to the library where one of the main character’s friends was a monkey named Steve.
Scene II: Deb and Li are at home. Deb is having one of “those” days, and is struggling to get the lid off the container of M&Ms. Eventually, the lid comes off unexpectedly and M&Ms explode out of the container and scatter all over the kitchen floor.
Li: “Daddy doesn’t open it that way.”
Updated: 28 Jan 2010 10:21 pm by Ron
Filed: Food • Life in General
Tagged: Food • Ian • St. Louis
Teagan (l) and Ian (r) at the top of the Arch on Wednesday afternoon (01/2010)
… and I think we are all ready to be home again.
Ian and Teagan’s presentation on Wednesday morning went really well, striking a nice blend of the geek stuff. They seemed comfortable doing it, and seemed to have fun in doing it. Very well-received by the audience, and I think it was more than just being polite; a number of them were genuinely impressed with what these guys had accomplished. As a dad, to say I was a little proud of these guys would be a big understatement.
They had a bit of time in the afternoon when there wasn’t anything on the conference agenda that appealed to them during the afternoon, so we wandered down to the arch (our hotel is less than a mile from the park with the arch, or “The Arch”, I suppose). I have to admit I was not expecting all that much, but it was way cooler than I had anticipated… and not just the weather, although it did start snowing while we were up at the top. I knew it was big, but I really didn’t have a sense of its scale and it really is pretty impressive. We walked back to the hotel in an increasingly-dense snow shower.
A rare splash of color in St. Louis: cool jazz sculpture in the snow near Laclede's Landing in downtown St. Louis (01/2010)
Food has been a pleasant surprise here in St. Louis, to put it mildly. We had excellent Indian on Wednesday evening at India’s Rasoi on Euclid with Bryan (Ian’s and Teagan’s mentor); it was exceptional and we all came home impressed and stuffed. We went a little lighter this evening with very good sushi (edamame, nagiri, and a couple different rolls) from Wasabi on Washington, then we wandered around in a cool foodie grocery/deli called Culinaria on 9th and came back to the hotel with ice cream.
Tomorrow we head for home, and we’re all ready — at least mentally — to be home again. Likely to be a long day, given that we aren’t scheduled to get back into IF until almost 11pm… I can’t say I will feel bad about leaving St. Louis. It has been cold, almost exclusively grey, and damp the whole time. Aside from the food and the Arch, there just really isn’t much here that we’ve seen that would make me want to come back but I also recognize that we haven’t had much of a chance to get out and do much and January in the midwest really hasn’t given St. Louis much of a chance to impress.
Updated: 28 Jan 2010 09:49 pm by Ron
Filed: Food • Life in General
Tagged: Food • St. Louis • travel
Ian (l) and Teagan (r) on the train into St. Louis Monday afternoon (01/2010)
… is kind of a mixed bag. Ian, Teagan (a friend of Ian’s), and I are back here for the week for a conference (more on that in a bit), but I don’t yet really have much of an opinion aside from initial impressions. We flew in on Monday and rode the train from the airport into the downtown area to the hotel. The train ride was grey, brown, and rust: a grey blustery day, nothing green in sight, and passing through areas of run-down industrial and urban decay on the west side of the city. I’m a little surprised at the lack of effort on the part of the city to do anything to clean up the area, given the impression it leaves on someone new to town. Depressing.
The hotel where we are staying and where the conference is being hosted is pretty decent and is big enough that it doesn’t seem stretched to hold us all. Decent food within walking distance (very good Italian at J.F. Sanfilippo’s on Monday — made even better by great service — and decent Med last night at Nara’s). Looks like several sushi and Irish places close to us, too. We’ll probably check those out the next couple evenings. We haven’t really had much of a chance to get out and see anything, but the food and the hotel have been a bit of a counterpoint to the ride in…
Ian and Teagan were presented their awards at the conference yesterday morning in one of the plenary sessions, following a great presentation by Alan Paller of the SANS Institute. I’ll post a picture or two if I can track them down. They have their presentation this morning; I’m sure both of them will be glad to be past that so they can just enjoy the rest of the conference.
Updated: 08 Jan 2010 07:03 am by Ron
Filed: Life in General
Tagged: Weather
Current weather conditions this morning (01/2010)
This is what we found this morning, in checking the weather. Brutal.
Edit: And as of this morning (Friday, January 8), it’s showing us at -11 degrees F (and still dropping), but without the breeze…
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