UMTravels

Maybe I should call this four shots and a night:

Opera? Or prom date?

Cool opera shoes.

And the final curtain call. The view from my box seats… onto the stage and the pit.

[208.4]

It was a good day for getting books into the Libboo system. I completed:

• The Anthology of Sign of the Times
• One issue of Sign of the Times — A Chronicle of Decadence in the Atomic Age (Volume 5, Number 3)
• Piglettè Issue 17 (Kansas City)

The Piglettè issue will be Libbo’s first ever graphic novel. Hopefully in the next couple of days, these will post to the Amazon and Barnes and Noble sites. I have all the files from Piglettè Number One (Argentina) converted and ready to assemble.

Today’s Swanda health update:

After a couple of rough days, Chris is back in the saddle again. That saddle being about to have normal paced conversations (45 minutes with his boss, 15 with me) rather than the winded couple of words at a time conversation of the last week or so. He is regaining some strength through his Physical Therapists which means he’s been able to start standing (though it doesn’t sound like for long periods of time) and moving to his wheelchair to sit for a couple of hours. They have also been working on getting his legs and feet cleaned up (lots of cracking and calluses) so they are looking better than in the previous months.

Truly, I was amazed in the change in just the last day, I saw him Thursday afternoon as he was sort of in and out of nap zone, but today on the phone he sounded like the Chris from early December. He is still on the oxygen mask at night, but during the day he’s back to just the oxygen tube.

His sister Janet showed up this morning and will be with him through the weekend.

Dinner tonight with SurfBetty whose computer has been in my “rehab facility” to free up more space on his QuickBooks machine. Yep, a laptop devoted to one program. Cheaper than upgrading QuickBooks 2003 to QuickBooks 2010 (which runs on Windows 7).

Marinated flank steak, slaw, saffron rice for SurfBetty. Nice meal.

[209.8]

Today’s oddity. A wine and cupcake pairing. Cupcake Royale released their Valentine’s Day cupcake call Deathcake Royale. Just put together a wine tasting just a couple of doors south of the shop. I was manning the store counter while he was pouring (for THIS I cancelled my trip to Berkeley on a $101.40 round-trip fare).

Here’s what we were pouring:

2009 Cadence, Coda $25

Red Mountain, 34% Merlot, 31% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Cabernet Franc, 10% Petit Verdot
The 2009 vintage was warm but not hot with a stunning September to finish up ripening. Coda fairly bursts with lip-smacking berry goodness. Plums, blueberries and a touch of Red Mountain spice lead the aromatic profile. The palate is juicy, fresh and just plain delightful. Tannins are definitely present at the level that begs for food with which to play. There is so much intensity and balance that it can defiantly go past the main course and into desert.

Gonzales Byass, Solera 1847 Oloroso Duce $18

75% Palomino, 25% Pedro Ximenez
This rich Spanish Sherry spent an average 8 years in the Solera. It has full concentrated flavors of sweet raisins and figs with a velvety palate and a touch of nuttiness on the finish. It can stand up to but not over power any number of deserts. And best of all you don’t have to finish the whole bottle. Due to the Solera process it keeps open for months.

I include it as it would be a good match for any chocolate heavy dessert you might be planning.

With some last minute customers we didn’t get out of the shop until 7:30 which put me at home a little after 8 for my steak dinner washed down with the remains of a red and a white that a rep left us to try.

Nice quiet evening.

[209.0]

First pickup since the snow storm. No problem with the garbage, but recycle is WAY over full.

Appointment today are with the folks from the Evergreen Foundation to give the the report for the endowment this year. Applications come in a month and a half. The endowment has about $57,000 in it and it will throw off about $2600 this year for some lucky student(s). 2013 will be $2800 in grants. One of the better things I’ve done in my life.

SurfBetty arrived at the end of the Foundation meeting to go over website stuff, laptop stuff, and fix a couple of broken things in my life (unfortunately he can’t fix broken love life):

Stuffed pork loin for dinner, good time had. Now I have to fix his computer.

Damn.

[210.1]

To the apartment to pick up mail, to the bank (I found a new branch on this side of the water) to deposit a check, and then the moment I’ve been putting off for weeks, visiting Swanda in the hospital. Here is the report I sent out after my visit to the ever growing email list:

I went to see Chris this afternoon, and here’s the update. The last day and a half hasn’t been the easiest on him. The catheter is back in as more of a convenience than anything else. Since he needs help to get upright and out of bed, if there is a code going down on the ward, there just isn’t the staffing. He was upright in the Hummer (Janet’s phrase for the seriously high-tech seriously large wheelchair).

I happened to arrive while a nurse intern was questioning him about the course of his illness, soon followed by the Physical Therapy folks to get him vertical and sitting on the edge of the bed. They are trying to keep him more vertical so fluid doesn’t build up in the lungs, impairing his breathing. At night they have him on a c-pap machine (from the looks of it they tried a new on last night). He doesn’t like it, but is keeping it on at night because he knows it’s helping him — he thinks that it’s keeping him awake. He is still in ICU, not so much for his condition, but because of the hoist system built into the ceiling that helps move him around.

This minor setback will most likely keep him in the hospital until after the weekend. He’s not eating much so the nurses are on him about that as well. His apartment is ready for his return (once I go and make the bed) with the only remaining piece to be a bit of trim around the bathroom door. The raised toilet and vanity are in, as are the grab bars in the bathroom and inside the shower, but his return will be after a couple of weeks in a rehab facility.

I could see that he was really glad to see me because he knows how much I dislike hospitals, and I’m guessing he knew my excuse of bringing him is mail, was just that, an excuse. I’ll go back in another couple of days with more mail.

Sorry for those of you who read the blog and are on the email list as well.

DancingBear arrived about six after visiting Swanda in the hospital and help feed him dinner (something I neglected to report on above). Rolled up flank steaks with spinach and mozzarella, roasted Yukon Gold potatoes and onions, and a lovely slaw was dinner.

That’s all for today.

[210.3]

Actually it wasn’t really maudlin, I just liked the way it sounds.

Slept in late, checked out of the Camlin at noon, leaving my luggage with the bellman and headed to DragonFish for lunch (20% for Camlin guests). A lovely bento box lunch and it was off to a Bordeaux tasting at the Washington Athletic Club. Nothing like sampling 40-50 wines in under an hour, just after lunch. And I did a lot of swallowing. My rule is that if its $50 wholesale a bottle or over I’m at least swallowing a sip. I’d say about half of the bottles were in the over $50 range, and a handful were over $100 (that’s two sips).

From the tasting it was off to the apartment to pick up Swanda’s mail and retrieve the car. The bathroom is mostly finished:

It was after three by the time I actually got home and started digging out from under unanswered emails.

A quiet dinner at home capped the evening.

[? ? ?]

Actually a full work day on Sunday would be 11-5 (+ 15 minutes on both sides to open and close). Today, add an hour for the port tasting.

The ports we tasted:

• Kopke, 10 Year Old Tawny   $15/375ml   $25/750ml
• 1988 Kopke, Colheita Tawny   $28/375ml   $51/750ml
• Kopke, Special Reserve   $11/375ml   $18/750ml
• 2005 Rocha, Late Bottle Vintage   $14/375ml   $21/750ml
• 2007 Rocha, Vintage   $30/375ml   $50/750ml

Having never tasted Tawnys and Rubys together it was an education session for me as well (and I didn’t have to pay the $5 tasting fee). My favorite was the 1988 Kopke Colheita Tawny. Not the most expensive, the second most expensive. The main taste difference between Tawny Port (the first two) and Ruby Port (the last three) is the level of sweetness with the tawnys being the less sweet. It reminds me that there is a bottle in the laundry room that needs drinking at some point.

After work it was off to the Camlin for my last Sunday stay for a while. I was over ambitious in my booking a month ago and booked Sunday nights figuring that with dinner at Swandas that I shouldn’t be driving home afterwards, and then Swanda went into the hospital, scuttling those Sunday Night dinner plans. To avoid paying for parking ($27 valet, $20 self-park), I unload the car, check in, put the luggage in the room and then drive the car to the apartment and take the bus back.

I’d packed in dinner so after a welcome drink I had my chicken and green bean Chinese dish with an extra thigh from the other night, ignoring the rice that it was on top of (trying to be good about avoiding carbs).

Erik showed up at 8:30 to shoot the shit and drink bourbon. Left a little before midnight to catch the bus before it stopped running.

I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow morning.

[212.3]

My first Saturday working the shop along except during the wine tasting. Got the Wall Street Journal read and some of Popular Mechanics, but that’s about as far as I got. Too many good distractions like selling wine.

Jill came in for a bit. Bought a split of Gruet Champagne to go with the 18 oysters she bought in the International District — sounds like a damn fine meal to me for someone having trouble chewing! Flo came whizzing in about 6:30 needing half a case of the Spanish wines we were tasting this afternoon. In and out in under ten minutes without even tasting — he was headed over to Greg and Patsys two blocks away for dinner and was late. Hope he likes the wine. Should I have told him Greg isn’t drinking this month? Should I have told him they are on part of the Madrona Wines Monthly Wine Club and they are well stocked? The only other odd customer was the guy who runs an underground restaurant in his house once a month (for 35 people) looking for wines to pair with a really wild menu so he could send people in for wine. I’ll try and dig up the menu and post tomorrow. Wish I’d gotten his email address as he invited me over to join them for dinner (but I’ll be beat after work tomorrow).

Got home a little before 8 and fired up the ice maker and the convection oven. Tonight’s meal is chicken thighs with a lemon grass marinade. By 8:30 the thighs (well, two of them) were on a bed of greens and on their way into my stomach.

Today’s picture is actually from Friday — Ken (the maintenance guru at the apartment) is installing the new Swanda sized toilet. As you can see (though the angle is a little disconcerting) the counter top has already been raised 7 inches. Thanks Ken, nice job. Must remember to take him a bottle of wine.

Didn’t get squat done on the eBook project to convert all of the issues of Sign of the Times — A Chronicle of Decadence in the Atomic Age. Working with Fernando on in-book graphics (I want the back cover to be included). One issue that has been resolved is that I don’t think the original photographs and artwork will be in the eBooks. At least not the photographs, the quality of them once they are rescanned just isn’t there. Maybe the next eBook I should be working on is the Anthology as there were no graphics other than the front/back cover.

Off to bed.

[211.8]

Ah, the trip of changes. So, yesterday afternoon got an email from the Victoria Clipper (well, their reservations folks). Seems that the 5pm return trip to Seattle is now 11:15am to miss high winds (and a possible cancelling of a sailing) in the later afternoon.

And a little cut and paste from an email to Chip as it says it all:

And as for the Clipper, we were greeted onboard for our early departure with:

• 50% off certificate for our next trip
• 20% off duty free booze — 40oz. bottle of Bacardi light rum $15.00 down to $12.00
• 20% off duty free cigarettes (actually bought some to keep in the freezer for my smoking friends) $24.80
• 10% off perfumes/colognes (passed)
• $2.50 cocktails and beer (down from $5.50)

Hadn’t planned on drinking scotch at 11:30 in the morning… for big glasses of free-poured Glen Fiddich for $2.50, how can you refuse.

And in other news Swanda continues to improve and is talking on the phone now.

Today’s humorous photo. Air Can Sex:

Did a little shopping at Uwajimaya on the way through to pick up my car. Kalbi marinated half chicken for dinner, and stock on the stove after.

[? ? ?]

Slept late, still recovering from neck issues from sleeping on the ferry yesterday.

No breakfast unless you count lunch at 1pm with RobinHood as breakfast. He suggested Santiagos which I’ve been to before and love. We started out splitting the ceviche and then moved onto the chowder (cup for me, bowl for him). A lovely lunch when combined with a couple of martinis (for me, red wine for him). Most of the conversation was business related to the coming Summer Gathering that RobinHood is co-Queens Regristrar with PansyWildfire.

Here are some great shots he took of me at lunch:

Got home and found these lovely chairs for the deck if I wasn’t so cheap/frugal:

http://fab.com/sale/2837 if you are interested ($114 + $10 handling fee for the single, $374 + $25 handling free for the bench)

Must be the day for pictures because here is the Chef’s Salad I made for dinner:

Personally, I like the “white trash” wine bucket.

After dinner CaptSnowden came over for a hot tub. Nice to go skinny dipping on the Inner Harbour with friends.

To bed at a reasonable time tonight with the changes (yet again) travel schedule.

]? ? ?]

Thank the goddess I had a wakeup call placed. I was out like a light. Despite my worries of not being able to get a timely cab — one appeared in 5-10 minutes and we took the long way (but with not much grade) to Pier 69 for the Victoria Clipper to Victoria. MUCH better than having to walk since all the busses were on Emergency Routes only. And yes, even though the snow that started at 4am, the Clipper is running this morning:

I read for a bit and then just curled up on three seats and went to sleep.

Duty-free was the$16 liter of Jamesons.

I was the second person through customs/immigration. So quick I didn’t even have my passport card out yet. By 11am I was at the condo and to my shock and amazement my unit (or should I say Swanda’s unit) was ready, not that I really need the handicap unit. The 2-bedroom penthouse looks like this:

Two local faerie boys I met at camp last May are coming to dinner. Salmon in a raspberry black pepper glaze, salad with avocado, tortillas (because the bread at the tiny market around the corner didn’t look all that hot) and a couple of bottles of wine. Not bad for not going to the market far away but relying on the fish store, mini-market and wine shop, each within 4-5 blocks of the condo.

I think I’ll sleep in tomorrow.

[? ? ?]

Nothing like getting woken up to the sound of “Mr. Souder, we are preemptively cancelling all our flights for tomorrow.” Thank you for not flying with us.

Call the folks at the Victoria Clipper. We only don’t sail for high winds and we won’t know until tomorrow. I pray and book ticket, then call WorldMark and get a one bedroom downtown because the snow is supposed to start at 4am. A lotta effort just to hang out in the penthouse condo in Victoria. By the time I’d booked those two thinks Alaska called me about the cancellation and whether I wanted to rebook for another date (which in retrospect is what I should have done).

On the way to the Camlin (the WorldMark property in Seattle) I swing by the apartment to take the mail up and see how the new handicapped toilet installation is coming. ChaChaChaChange. Other half of the toilet still isn’t in.

I’m checked in by 3 and back at the apartment with today’s mail run and run into Ken, the building super. He’s doing what he can on the project while he waits for the other piece to arrive.

By 3:30, having left the car in the garage at the apartment and having taken the bus back to the Camlin (apartment at one end of the bus tunnel, Camlin at the other end, very convenient). Wow, was that a fragment or a run-on sentence?

More change as in dinner plans. Walk eight blocks to Gourmet Japanese to use $25 restaurants.com coupon. CLOSED while the building’s exterior is renovated. Bad restaurant. You might have put that on your website.

Walking back to the Camlin I stopped in at Andaluca and had a five course pre fixe meal instead and for way more money, but they do have a full bar. Metaxa Sidecar (no sugar on the rim please) followed by a Manhattan (Jim Beam). The dinner?

• Green bean and roasted beet salad
• Roasted mussels (in photo below

• Grilled Quail
• Beef tenderloin with blue cheese
• Blue cheese with cherry chutney for dessert since they were out of the pumpkin cheese cake

One thing that didn’t change? A late bedtime.

[209.9]

Nice to be able to sleep in on a gray day, though I did have that nagging 10:30am appointment for “owner re-education”. The $100 AMEX card will basically reimburse me for the cost of the room ($36), dinner last night at DragonFish ($50 with tip), and the cab ride to Madrona ($11 with tip) and leave me with $3 leftover. That even included bus fare from yesterday because the driver didn’t want to collect it because he wasn’t sure he could actually get us downtown.

Got up to Madrona about noon, wrangled the chains off the passenger side (the driver’s side never made it on), and headed down the hill to Grocery Outlet for salad and slaw fixings, and oddly enough, marked down from $19.99 to $0.97 was a Musical Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. Never too late to start on Christmas 2012.

I put it in the box with all the other Christmas stuff that I took down. Nice motivator to get the Christmas detritus out of the living room. Even hauled a couple of bags of other unused electronics out to the garage. Pre-spring cleaning I guess.

Called the colonels (well, only one was awake) with the Swanda update which is still in the hospital, but taking pill orally rather than via IV. No word on prognosis or when he will be out of the ICU. His sister is in town and staying at his apartment, and is at the hospital every day.

Other than that, a quiet night at home.

[210.4 mid-day]

Got out of the house at 10:30am which would have been enough time to get to store open at 11am. That would be until I encountered snow and two stuck busses, which caused me to stop, losing my traction. I got onto a side street and was thankful I threw the chains in the trunk. Mind you, they were the chains from my old BMW, but with a bungee cord, I made one side work. Gave up on the other side as my hands were freezing and set out to make the last three blocks to the store.

Open at 11:30 with the first customer at 12:15 — the owner of the Guest House just down the street who came in for a bottle of wine to go home and curl up with. She probably should have stayed, it was a good day for traffic with lots of folks going out for a walk in the new snow (and stopping in for a bottle or six incase the snow continued).

Jim showed up a little before six and offered to close for me when a Number 2 bus showed up at the Number 3 stop. Once he’d had his pee-break he offered to “Free Wire” us downtown. What the hell is that. That would be using any free wires (it was an electric bus) whether they were on his route or not. He was trying to avoid all hills, and go down Jackson Street to meet up with his regular route. My favorite part was when he took a right hand turn from 23^rd Avenue onto Jackson, knowing that while there are wires on both streets, there is no “turn” in the wires so he popped the poles off, stopped, and put them on the Jackson Street wires. Too fun. Until that point he was doing this for just 3 or 4 passengers.

It was about six when I rolled (my bag) into the WorldMark at The Camlin. A studio on the second floor, and a 10:30am reservation for owner re-education ($100 AMEX card) that includes what will probably be a high-carb breakfast.

On the way to the room I grabbed a 20% off coupon for DragonFish, which is a block away. Think Asian Tapas. It also turns out Sunday is 50% off Sakè night. Relax with cocktail in the room (yes, I remembered to pack Scotch, but not my toiletries kit). Headed out at 7pm through the slush — at least it had stopped snowing.

Round One:

Aladdin Nigori Sakè (keeping the bottle for Onyx), and the Grilled Miso Rib Eye. Damn tasty.

Round Two was the seared ahi which was OK, but nothing to write home about which I find odd as this should be a shoe-in. I got the Thai Crab Cakes (4) to go with it. Half the thickness of most of the Crab Cakes I’ve seen, but there were four of them for $10 and cilantro aioli was pretty tasty.

I joined the “sakè club”, sort of like a tasters club. I’m not sure that I’ll get through all 17, but if I keep coming back for 50% off night, it might be possible after a couple of visits. Freebies include t-shirts and cedar drinking boxes.

Back at the condo it was time to start moving my schedule around. Seaside out. I haven’t heard from the boy and I’m not driving 3.5 hours without confirmation. That reservation I cancelled last night because months ago I’d booked Swanda in the WorldMark Victoria for the 18^th-21^st and we know THAT isn’t happening and it was too late to cancel and get money back, so off to Victoria I go. But how:

• Victoria Clipper: $82 r/t plus $10 a day parking and bad arrival/departure times
• Black Ball Ferry the Coho: $117 r/t plus the drive to Port Angeles, bad arrival/departure times, but I’d have my car
• BCFerries: $125 r/t plus the drive through Tawassan in SW British Columbia and the possibility of missing a ferry, but I’d have my car
• Kenmore Air: $268 r/t in a float plane from Lake Union to the Inner Harbour. Good flight times and a stunning trip. Or $58 using 20,000 Alaska Frequent Flier miles. And it’s the winner — let’s hope the weather cooperates.

Booked using the Alaska miles, watched a little TV and went to bed.

[209.1]

Shop duty today. Nice crowds, and lots of friends stopping in, including Darcie & Jean, as well as Salamander, who got an invitation to dinner out of it.

And that dinner:

Before.

After.

Beef flank wrapped in bacon. Yum. Add a salad, the remains of last night’s bread and a lovely bottle of wine and you have a meal.

The wine? 2006 Prorprietá Serino Uvaggio.

[210.1]

Unfortunately, with my continuing sniffles, I can’t visit Swanda in the hospital. There is some relief in that I don’t really like hospitals having stayed twice when I was young (three if you count delivery). When the AIDS epidemic started to hit Kansas City, I spent way too much time in hospitals in “protective clothing” since little was known about the disease at the time. Dancing Bear spent the afternoon, and I’ve been handling updates to friends and family.

Spent part of the afternoon wrestling with images from Volume Five, Number Three for the cover, back cover, and graphics for the last printed issue of Sign of the Times, A Chronicle of Decadence in the Atomic Age. Oddly enough this issue brings up all sorts of questions about rights management. I’m still in contact with two of the writers and one of the photographers. The Photographer (Mark I. Chester of San Francisco), is very concerned with copyright issues (as well as he should be). Since rescanning the original pieces of photography and drawings is out of the question (many simply just don’t exist anymore), they are scans of the printed pieces. I’m happy to share whatever revenue the project generates with the writers & artists, but electronic media is especially sensitive to easy copying. We will see how this plays out, at the moment, the decision to add the graphics that were originally in the magazine is up in the air. Updated links could easily link to the artists website, but will the quality of the scanned pieces be good enough for artists, or do I take the route of the anthology edition, and not deal with having any artwork other than the front (and hopefully back) covers. It may be a moot point if I can’t figure out how to get graphics into the guts of a Libboo eBook.

Tonight is “date night” with a guy I saw a couple of years ago. It actually went better than I was expecting. Good conversation. Who knows where it will lead, I’m not sure that I’m up for a 35 year-old buff boyfriend.

Lamb chops, salad, and fresh bread, though that might be the last fresh bread in a while since I broke yet another bread machine.

[210.4 and I don’t think it was just the lobster roll]

Another long day for Pucci. Luckily he moved one student around and came home to take me to the “T” saving me from a five block walk in the rain. In the Boston vernacular, it was pissing (as opposed to spitting, the other one, which is pissing, but coming at you at 30mph).

Made it from Pucci’s to the Delta Crown Room with cocktail in hand in 1:15. I was pretty amazed as that was:

• Pucci Shuttle to Harvard Square
• Red Line to Government
• Green Line to Park
• Blue Line to Airport Shuttle
• Shuttle to Airport
• Security

I celebrated my good fortune by purchasing a cup of Clam Chowder for waiting around the gate, and a Lobster Roll for the flight. No upgrade, yet again I was number 11 on the list.

On the down side, I got a call from Fluffernutter that Swanda had been hospitalized. That is never good.

Decent flight, puts me 25% of the way to MVP for 2013.

Sea-Tac to the apartment took a little longer this trip. Two fools decided to crash into each other… ON the light rail tracks. Finally got home around 11. I probably shouldn’t have stayed up till 3:30am.

[? ? ?]

Another chill day here outside the city (well, Boston that is).

Today’s big project was doing a sample issue of Sign of the Times — A Chronicle of Decadence in the Atomic Age as a Libboo book. Almost got it right the first time, but need to rescan the cover at a higher resolution, fix a bad piece of code, and try adding the original graphics to the issue. Right now, it’s just all the text. Not bad for a first effort, but it’s going to be some serious work to convert all nineteen issues.

All this coding was done to the smell of a crock pot full of Moroccan Spiced Stew which was the original plan for dinner, Netta and Ashly joining us here. But wait, change of plans. We are now going to Netta’s for a fish dinner with tapenade except for Ashley who will be having the stew because she’s allergic to fish.

Great dinner, good wine, and back home to work on the project some more.

[? ? ?]

Pucci was up and to the gym early. I was not.

Between the lingering cold and the long day I slept in until 10, peed, checked email, and went back to bed until 1. Nothing like having breakfast at 3pm. Guess that means it’s a two meal day.

Work in the afternoon — didn’t leave the flat even though Fernando gave me a 7-day Charlie Card. So sweet. Websites to revise, proposals to submit, blogs to update. No rest for the wicked.

As the sun went down, it is winter, which means early, it was time to think of dinner… raid the fridge/freezer.

Defrost two chicken breast pieces, chop up some shallots, green onions, bell peppers, a little coppa salami, get some butter in a pan… lay down a bed of arugula and green onion tops, fry up all the rest, top the salad, add the dressing, pour a glass of the “refrigerator white wine used for cooking”, call it a meal.

Pucci got back early so plans are laid for tomorrow during the day and for dinner tomorrow night.

All is good.

But there is no scale in the house, so [? ? ?]

Up at 5am and out the condo door at 5:30, butt on light rail at 5:48am, and off to the airport.

Considering the crush at security I was surprised at how quickly the lines started moving once they shut down the damn full body scanner. What a boondoggle that is.

I really must have been still asleep… got to the Board Room only to find I was missing my Driver’s License and Board Room card.

Back to security. As I’m close, a TSA guy says, “Mark?” Yes — go see the guy up that set of stairs, the guy on the phone. They were in the process of paging me. I thanked everybody repeatedly and headed back to the club. Had I not needed to check in at the club, I would have been in Boston before I realized. I travel with my Nexus Card and Passport Card so it wouldn’t have been a huge thing trying to get back on the plane in Boston.

Uneventful flight — 14D, the non-reclining exit row. After the long night last night, I probably slept half of the 4.5 hour flight. I did get most of a digital edition of the New Yorker finished on the trip. So much for low-carb with the bagel and cream cheese in the Board Room and the half a slice of French Toast and the cinnamon apples (the eggs and sausage were fine) on the plane. Hitting 205.0 yesterday morning is sort of a milestone since I started back on the low-carb stuff when I’d inched back up to 232 (which is still down from my all-time high of 242).

Flight arrived 20+ minutes early and Fernando was still in meetings when I texted him. The plan was that he’d come to the airport and meet me and we’d go to Harvard Square for dinner and a long business talk about creating a win-win situation with regards to Studio 403 and Libboo. It looks like at the end of a 3 hour plus dinner at Daedalus that Studio 403 is going to be a test case for backlist publishing on the Libboo royalties’ engine. One of the positive outcomes will be all the Sign of the Times individual issues and anthology, along with the Piglettè and Bobo series will be available as eBooks on Libboo and Amazon, possibly Barnes and Noble as well.

As for dinner, I had the steamed mussel appetizer (huge, could have been an entrèe) and the haddock stuffed with crab, Fernando had the soy marinated steak bits over a tomato risotto, which looked good as well. Add a likable bottle of Sangiovese (Italian) which was light enough to go with my fish, but not too light as to be overpowered by risotto. Good food — entrees in the high teens, low 20’s, great service, hot long-haired food runner.

After dinner it was more talk and more cocktails. It was amazing how three and a half hours passed until Pucci was due to show up. It looks like I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks prepping materials for Libboo along with redo (once again) the Studio 403 website to reflect getting back into the publishing business. Fernando is a big fan of Sign of the Times and even brought up re-launching the magazine as an eZine using the Libboo engine. Interesting concept. The Libboo engine would solve one of the problems with the old engine, how to track rights and payments (not that it ever made of profit unless you consider a “tax-loss” as a profit).

Pucci showed up at 9:15, but with his best (and most expensive) bass in the car, he wasn’t about to leave it parked on the street to come up for a drink. It was back to his house to settle in for the rest of the night, chatting and drinking whiskey.

[? ? ?]