stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2010-06-23 12:44 pm
stoutfellow) wrote2010-06-23 12:44 pm
Entry tags:
Weekend
This one's longish, so I'm putting it under a cut.
Friday. The day did not start well. Let's leave it at this: I didn't get to the archaeology dig, was dissed by an ATM, and had to change my pants. It was a relief to climb into the taxi to the airport. The trip was rather long, but reading, snoozing, and doing a little pen-and-paper research ate up the time pretty well. I made it to Dad's house at about 9:30 Pacific time - midnight Central, that is, so I crashed almost immediately.
Monday. My flight out was scheduled for 7:00; the car taking me to the airport arrived at 5:30. Dad was still in bed, and D had wished me a sleepy farewell about half an hour earlier. The first leg of the flight, to Milwaukee, was long but passed quickly, as on Friday. In Milwaukee... First there was a delay while they tracked down a flight crew. (The original crew had been diverted to another flight.) This took about half an hour. We boarded the flight - only to be informed that there was a mechanical problem with one of the engines. We sat on the tarmac for almost three hours before being cleared for takeoff. (They did provide us with pretzels, cookies, and cold water while we waited, but even so....) The flight to St. Louis took about a third as much time as the delays. Still and all, I was home by about 6 PM, to the great joy of Buster & Gracie. My body was still on Pacific Time, so I didn't get to sleep until after midnight, but I slept well.
And that was my weekend.
Friday. The day did not start well. Let's leave it at this: I didn't get to the archaeology dig, was dissed by an ATM, and had to change my pants. It was a relief to climb into the taxi to the airport. The trip was rather long, but reading, snoozing, and doing a little pen-and-paper research ate up the time pretty well. I made it to Dad's house at about 9:30 Pacific time - midnight Central, that is, so I crashed almost immediately.
The research had to do with simple closed geodesics on pyramids with a fixed square base and variable height. I was able to show that there aren't any, except for three specific values of the height. One was uninteresting (infinite height); one was "degenerate" (height 0, effectively just a square) and easy to solve; the third was harder, and I sketched out a plan of attack, but wasn't able to carry it out.Saturday. I wanted to contribute to Sunday's party by making a batch of chicken pilaf. Looking through Dad's cupboards, I saw that there was no pot big enough, so my brother and I went off to BB&B to get one, and then to the grocery store for other supplies. Somewhere in there I snuck in a trip to Barnes & Noble. More on that another time.
The haul: Julie Kenner, Demons Are Forever; E. E. Smith, Triplanetary; Charlie Stross, The Hidden Family; Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin; Dick Francis, Driving Force; Jim Butcher et al., Mean Streets; Isaac Asimov, Foundation's Edge; Frederik Pohl, Gateway; Robert Heinlein, The Puppet Masters.Sunday. The get-together was scheduled for noon at C's place, about an hour north of Dad's, and the pilaf was going to require about two hours to prepare, so I got cooking soon after getting up. I soon discovered that I'd forgotten some of the fine points of cooking with gas. The net result was that some of the butter wound up burned; the chicken and rice escaped that fate, but the pilaf tasted a bit dryer than the last batch I made. We got to C's a bit late (unusual; D and I are both a bit obsessive about time, and tend to arrive at least half an hour early). Most of the clan was already there, and there was the usual amount of socializing and, later, feasting. (Given how much else had been cooked, I'd made about three times too much pilaf. Dad and D will be eating leftovers for a few days - mine and other peoples' - I guess.) C had decided on a horse-racing theme for the party, and had made a batch of mint juleps. (I took a few sips, then set mine aside. Beer, fine; wine, good; but distilled liquors all taste medicinal to me.) The party game du jour was... well, it was ice-cube racing. C had frozen small horse figurines into ice cubes, and we raced our "horses" by letting them slide down a ramp. I made it to the semi-finals.... The rest of the get-together was mostly devoted to watching the (very sloppy) final round of golf at Pebble Beach.
Monday. My flight out was scheduled for 7:00; the car taking me to the airport arrived at 5:30. Dad was still in bed, and D had wished me a sleepy farewell about half an hour earlier. The first leg of the flight, to Milwaukee, was long but passed quickly, as on Friday. In Milwaukee... First there was a delay while they tracked down a flight crew. (The original crew had been diverted to another flight.) This took about half an hour. We boarded the flight - only to be informed that there was a mechanical problem with one of the engines. We sat on the tarmac for almost three hours before being cleared for takeoff. (They did provide us with pretzels, cookies, and cold water while we waited, but even so....) The flight to St. Louis took about a third as much time as the delays. Still and all, I was home by about 6 PM, to the great joy of Buster & Gracie. My body was still on Pacific Time, so I didn't get to sleep until after midnight, but I slept well.
And that was my weekend.