Rather than stay home for my birthday (which I've done for the past few years) I decided to make things interesting this time 'round the sun. Sitwon and Haxwithaxe had secured a hotel room and passes for Shmoocon in downtown DC last weekend, so I threw my hat into the ring more or less at the last minute. Shmoocon is an excellent hacker conference, don't get me wrong, but I don't ordinarily get much out of it. It is, as they say around here, above my pay grade. That said, I decided to go solely to see what I could …

Last Monday night Lyssa and I took to the DC Beltway in the middle of rush hour, cast caution to the wind, and set course for the Meriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland to attend one of the rarest of events: the first Leonard Cohen concert in fifteen years. Yes, the man, the myth, the legend himself is on the road once again with a top notch band and a soulful voice and double entendes that'll turn your knees to jelly. From Cohen's rich as whisky basso voice to Javier Mas' talented hands dancing across most every stringed instrument known to …

Last weekend wound up a bit in the air due to an emergency at the last minute - one of Lyssa's relatives died unexpectedly and the family was hastily reconvened for her funeral, which was held on Saturday. because I'd been on the road the weekend before, I didn't have to make the trek back to Pennsylvania, much to my relief. Grant picked up Lyssa sometime on Friday while I was at work and returned to their homestead, which left me with some time on my hands. The first thing I did was move my car maintenance appointment back to Saturday …

Remember when Lowmagnet was in town and we wound up at Spellbound? He posted the pictures he took while he was in DC.

Unfortunately, I spent much of last Friday asleep, recovering after a routine filling went south and turned into an emergency root canal. I don't know what does it about the procedure, but it wipes me out completely - it might be the body reacting to having a part of it removed with what amounts to tiny drill bits, or it might be the knowledge of it. For all I know, it could be the aftereffects of multiple injections of local anesthetic that happens to contain epinephrine, which would logically bring about a fight-or-flight reaction as the syringe-loads naturally leaked into the …

Last Friday seemed to be the day of the ice storm that wasn't really. That morning, sure, the cars were coated with ice (as I discovered at the same instant that I found I had no gloves with me) and the roads were wet, but in truth they really weren't as bad as everyone made them out to be. I had little difficulty making it in to work that day, and even less trouble returning home that evening. For this reason, I find it quite strange that so many offices in NOVA were understaffed that day, but then again what …

On Friday the 15th I turned 30.

I know that I didn't make a big deal out of it, and that wasn't out of any shame or wanting to keep things low-key as it was I've been really busy lately and didn't have time to post about it anywhere. The company I work for has pulled me from fieldwork for at least the next couple of months after what happened in Tuscaloosa. I've been moved to another project much closer to home and I spent all day Friday in the field with my cow-orkers getting stuff set up and running …

I've been sent on the road again for work, this time to the west coast, and the lovely region of California called Palo Alto. It's 0606 EST as I begin writing this from my increasingly infirm partner in crime Windbringer from one of the Z gates of Dulles International. Security was a nightmare this morning - not only does everyone and their backup seem to be hitting the friendly skies this morning, but the physical security detail seems to have changed its strategies once again. Now they are inspecting boarding passes and presented identification with both ultraviolet lamps and magnifying monocles …

The past two weekends have been more or less non-stop running around so I haven't been writing about them lately. To make a long story short, Lyssa and I are fixing up the apartment a bit more and so are doing quite a bit of reorganizing. This weekend just passed we bought a new dresser from Ikea which wound up being an all weekend job of assembly. Last night we had to run back out there (and made it from Virginia to Maryland in record time on the beltway let me tell you, though most of it was due to …