As you no doubt have observed I've been conspicuously absent for the past couple of weeks, at least since returning from a long-overdue vacation with Lyssa in lovely Portland, Oregon. Much of my time has been spent at work doing the things that bastards like me get paid to do: run and fix backups, install software, patch systems, run audits, and generally keep things chugging along smoothly for the folks who do everything else. Due to the weather in the DC metroplex taking a turn for the rainy and cold (as it's wont to do every Samhain) my commute has …