I had to go to DC or rather I should say near DC for a seminar last week. It was at the Marriot on the airport grounds. I waited to long to make reservations and that hotel was full so I had to stay a couple of miles away.

On the first day during the lunch break I decided to stroll around outside to pass the time, and when I went out there was a squirrel trying to get in the door. I walked around a bit and came back and he was still there. I decided to get my camera, and when I came back he was still there. I got a few shots off before he decided to run away. I've never seen a squirrel so unafraid.

The Washington trip itself was fairly uneventful. I drove down (about 6 hours), and listened to several books on tape, which I had already listened to, but not for sometime.

• Ann Tyler - Ladder of Years
• Richard Bach - A Bridge Across Forever
• Richard Bach - Illusions

I've only heard the one Ann Tyler book, this was an Author Ali liked and shared with me. We have several of her books lying around and I think I'm going to begin reading them as soon as I finish "A Short History of Nearly Everything -- Bill Bryson," which David was kind enough to give me for my birthday along with "A Walk in the Woods" (same author).

In other news I noticed that there is a Johnny Rockets in Scranton on my way home from DC. Scranton is a short 1.5 - 2 hours from our house, so I think Ali and I will have to make a trek there as she has never been to one.

I fixed my cell phone today. The case had broken and when ever you flip it open it would fall into two pieces. Of course Verizon Wireless told me it couldn't be fixed and that I would have to buy a new phone, and while you're at it you should get into another contract since yours has expired. I thought about doing all that, but in the end I bought a brand new shell including screen for $30 off of ebay and transferred my guts to it today. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure as you need a T6 (torx) driver to take the screws out and of course I don't have one (T10 is as small as my set goes). I went to Radio Shack and they were out of stock, but the guy there told me to bring my phone in and I could use theirs. I did, and I stood at the counter for a while working on my phone when I finally realized there were some pieces I needed to remove from my old phone to put in the new shell that would not come out. I had to come home and cut part of the old phone apart with a hack saw to get at the pieces I needed to transfer. In the end I got all everything moved over to my new shell and it works like a champ -- Wahoo!

I got some good pictures of Bailey playing with me from inside a box recently ...

Ali bought me a mandolin for my birthday! It is a fender FM-52E acoustic / electric. Although, I don't know how to play much on it yet, acoustically it sounds sweet. I haven't had a chance to plug it in to see how the electronics sounds yet. All in all, I must say this is a pretty cool birthday present.

When Ali and I moved we decided not to get cable, it is just too much of a time sink. Whenever I've had cable I've found myself planted in front of the TV instead of doing more interesting things. And while I am completely and unwaveringly happy with our decision to go sans cable, I just stumbled across a new show on VH1 called In Tune. The idea is to take an up and coming artist and a well established one and put them together to perform each others music. It appears the upcoming show is featuring Paul Simon and John Mayer. I absolutely love both of these guys. If someone has a way to record this on VHS or burn a DVD for me please do. If you need my address to send it to me, just let me know -- I would be forever in your debt. There are two video clips on the website Boy in the Bubble and Slip Sliding Away they are wonderful.

We've been our house now for a couple of weeks and one thing we are noticing is that the heating system is woefully inadequate. First off, the furnace is a combination gas, wood burner. Combo units are typically very inefficient. Secondly, it turns out despite the fact that there were registers in the floor there is only one real vent on the second floor. It is in what will become the master bedroom once we gut it and redo it. But this winter we are going to be sleeping in the other bedroom and it has no register, and what I think is worse the bathroom doesn't have one either. Thirdly, the third floor (read finished attic) doesn't have any heat at all, and this is where I decided to put my office. Fourthly, the furnace, water heater, and wood stove all vent to the same flue this is unsafe and could lead to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Well it's that time of year again; ski season is just around the corner. Last night my father in-law suggested we would be skiing in as little as four weeks. This reminded me that the new Warren Miller film should be out soon. Thus I went and checked the website and sure enough the trailer is available. This is his 55th annual film and it is currently making its way across the country. I highly recommend seeing it, or any Warren Miller film for that matter, if you have an opportunity -- be warned, it will change your life.

I noticed this growing out of our basement wall a couple of days ago ...

Somehow I missed it; I stumble across it a couple of days later. I knew the deadline was drawing near and that there would be a mad rush of teams trying to claim the prize. As it turned out SpaceShipOne claimed the price on October 4th (this is the team funded by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame). You can read more at CNN or Slashdot.

It also appers Virgin's Richard Branson is getting in on the action. He has founded Virgin Galactic, and plans to license SpaceShipOne's technology for its fleet.

I've been wondering if my mad typing skills have declined over the years. A quick google for "typing test" yielded this link http://www.typingtest.com/ where I got the following results.

Test name      Fishing in Finland
Gross Speed    86 WPM
Errors         3 Words
Net Speed      83 WPM
Accuracy       96%

How fast can you type?

Isn't it great to be back home
home is where I want to be
I've been on the road for so long ...

Well it's almost like home -- still too new. Ali and I moved into House #23 last week, and then whisked away to Alabama for the Fiddlers Convention (see previous post for pictures).

Anniston and Fiddlers was a blast; I didn't realize how much I was missing everyone until I got to see them (well almost everyone). We did the obligatory Matas and then went back to my brothers where we had a small party to celebrate my 30th birthday. On Friday we hung out with Dad and Nancy (saying that always reminds me of Sid and Nancy), and then we departed for Athens in the early afternoon.

I must say, there is a lot of cotton in Alabama this year. I can't remember the last time I saw that much cotton in the state. Now just wait a cotton pickin' minute mister -- I digress.

I'm glad to see Will is back on the sauce; blogging and commenting.

Here are the pictures from Anniston & Fiddlers.

Enjoy.