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A Bit Hectic ...
Life is busy. So what else is new?
Celebrity Death Watch: Warren Adler wrote the book on which the movie The War of the Roses was based. Fay McKenzie was an actress who played opposite Gene Autry in several movies. Lorraine Warren was a paranormal investigator. Ira Neimark was the chairman of Bergdorf Goodman. Varena Wagner Lafferentz was the youngest granddaughter of Richard Wagner and believed to be one of Hitler’s lovers. Mavis Pusey was an abstract artist. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian combined geometric art from Iranian traditions with modern abstract art. Ken Kercheval was an actor, best known for playing Cliff Barnes on Dallas. David Winters was an actor and choreographer. Mark Medoff was a playwright, best known for Children of a Lesser God. Jean was the Grand Doke of Luxembourg. Menachem Mendel Taub was the Rebbe of the Kaliv Hasidic dynasty. John Singleton was a film director, best known for Boyz in the Hood. Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies. John Starling was a founder of The Seldom Scene. Red Kelly was a Canadian ice hockey player. Lord Toby Jug was a British politician who, after being expelled from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, went on to the found the Eccentric Party. Mose Se Sengo was a Congolese musician. Rachel Held Evans was a Christian writer. Doreen Spooner was the first woman to become a full-time photographer for a British national newspaper.
John Havlicek was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He scored more points than anybody else who has ever played for the Celtics.
Richard Lugar was a Republican senator from Indiana. He focused a lot on foreign policy (including measures to address climate change) and on agricultural reform. He was also a liberal on gun control. However, he took conservative social positions on abortion and on LGBT issues.
Jo Sullivan Loesser was the widow of Frank Loesser and looked after his musical legacy. She had also been an actress and singer, including originating the role of Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella.
Inca Social: I completely forgot to mention that I went out to dinner with a bunch of flyertalk friends the week before Pesach. We went to Inca Social, just a few steps from the Dunn Loring - Merrifield metro station. I had a chilcano (a cocktail with pisco and ginger ale) and something called Inca tacu tacu, which consisted of a bean and rice caked topped with steak. The steak was particularly tasty and the serving size was quite generous (i.e. I couldn’t finish it all). In general, everyone seemed to like their food, but the people who got beer were not really impressed with their craft beers. The service was reasonably good, too. The place wasn’t horribly loud and the lighting was decent, so we weren’t struggling to read the menus. Throw in travel-related conversation and it was a nice evening out.
Please Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was on a tour and was sharing a room with a woman from Hong Kong (and possibly her husband, but only she had a suitcase and shoes in the room). We weren’t leaving the hotel for another day, but, for some reason, most of her belongings ended up on the roof rack of our tour bus. I went back to the room to check that my things were okay there and saw just one pair of my shoes and two pairs of hers there. But I discovered that our room was not actually at the end of the hall, but there was another room, with no door. There was a very negative tripadvisor review of the hotel posted on the wall of that room. I went back out to the bus and my suitcase and belongings were scattered around the roof rack.
Something Else About Dreams: Sometimes I seem to have a dream that is all about images, without any actual action. For example, one morning last week, I woke up with a strong mental image of a wall of black and white polka-dot straw hats.
Something Else About Sleep: The absolute worst way to wake up is a leg cramp. Being bitten by a wild animal may be even worse, but I haven’t experienced that and I hope never to, so I will continue to believe this.
Business Trip: I spent all of last week in Colorado Springs for a work-related conference. The weather was particularly crappy, including a couple of inches of snow on Tuesday morning (which had vanished by lunchtime) and lots of cold wind. And I didn’t really have free time to do anything besides work. At least work was decently productive. Also, I had dinner with my boss one evening, during which we mostly talked about music. It’s nice to know he has interesting taste, including a lot of the world fusion type of stuff I also listen to.
The meetings ended early enough on Friday that I was able to fly home that night, instead of having to waste half my weekend on airplanes, which is always good.
TCC Luncheon: Getting home for the weekend allowed me to get to the Travelers’ Century Club luncheon on Saturday. There was a lot of interesting conversation. It seems like the Guyanas are the current hot place for people to go. I’ve also concluded that I need to avoid one person, whose interests are just too far from mine to be worth discussing much with. I always have a reason for where I choose to go – typically wildlife, archaeological sites, and/or music. I don’t really understand people who just want to check off the country boxes and don’t want to spend time understanding a culture. Most TCCers are not just country collectors, but some (like this woman) can be pretty superficial.
JGSGW Meeting: Sunday was a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting. Dan Oren gave a good talk on various things he’s learned during his research. The most interesting anecdote had to do with the interpretation of the date on a tombstone, in which it turned out that the apparent date on the stone actually referred to the Torah portion for the week that the person died. He had several other interesting tidbits, emphasizing patience, continuing to relook at data, and collaborating with other people. It was definitely worth driving to Rockville in the rain for.
Less Stressed: I am not entirely unstressed with work things, but a phone call from a friend who I hadn’t talked with for a while helped quite a lot. We were talking about upcoming travel plans and I mentioned the trip I have planned for December, which includes 5 nights of wild camping in the desert. The conversation ran like this:
Her: oh, cool
Me: That’s why I like you. Everyone else I’ve mentioned this to said I’m nuts.
(I should note that she has some pretty out of the way trips of her own planned.)
Celebrity Death Watch: Warren Adler wrote the book on which the movie The War of the Roses was based. Fay McKenzie was an actress who played opposite Gene Autry in several movies. Lorraine Warren was a paranormal investigator. Ira Neimark was the chairman of Bergdorf Goodman. Varena Wagner Lafferentz was the youngest granddaughter of Richard Wagner and believed to be one of Hitler’s lovers. Mavis Pusey was an abstract artist. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian combined geometric art from Iranian traditions with modern abstract art. Ken Kercheval was an actor, best known for playing Cliff Barnes on Dallas. David Winters was an actor and choreographer. Mark Medoff was a playwright, best known for Children of a Lesser God. Jean was the Grand Doke of Luxembourg. Menachem Mendel Taub was the Rebbe of the Kaliv Hasidic dynasty. John Singleton was a film director, best known for Boyz in the Hood. Peter Mayhew played Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies. John Starling was a founder of The Seldom Scene. Red Kelly was a Canadian ice hockey player. Lord Toby Jug was a British politician who, after being expelled from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, went on to the found the Eccentric Party. Mose Se Sengo was a Congolese musician. Rachel Held Evans was a Christian writer. Doreen Spooner was the first woman to become a full-time photographer for a British national newspaper.
John Havlicek was one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He scored more points than anybody else who has ever played for the Celtics.
Richard Lugar was a Republican senator from Indiana. He focused a lot on foreign policy (including measures to address climate change) and on agricultural reform. He was also a liberal on gun control. However, he took conservative social positions on abortion and on LGBT issues.
Jo Sullivan Loesser was the widow of Frank Loesser and looked after his musical legacy. She had also been an actress and singer, including originating the role of Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella.
Inca Social: I completely forgot to mention that I went out to dinner with a bunch of flyertalk friends the week before Pesach. We went to Inca Social, just a few steps from the Dunn Loring - Merrifield metro station. I had a chilcano (a cocktail with pisco and ginger ale) and something called Inca tacu tacu, which consisted of a bean and rice caked topped with steak. The steak was particularly tasty and the serving size was quite generous (i.e. I couldn’t finish it all). In general, everyone seemed to like their food, but the people who got beer were not really impressed with their craft beers. The service was reasonably good, too. The place wasn’t horribly loud and the lighting was decent, so we weren’t struggling to read the menus. Throw in travel-related conversation and it was a nice evening out.
Please Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was on a tour and was sharing a room with a woman from Hong Kong (and possibly her husband, but only she had a suitcase and shoes in the room). We weren’t leaving the hotel for another day, but, for some reason, most of her belongings ended up on the roof rack of our tour bus. I went back to the room to check that my things were okay there and saw just one pair of my shoes and two pairs of hers there. But I discovered that our room was not actually at the end of the hall, but there was another room, with no door. There was a very negative tripadvisor review of the hotel posted on the wall of that room. I went back out to the bus and my suitcase and belongings were scattered around the roof rack.
Something Else About Dreams: Sometimes I seem to have a dream that is all about images, without any actual action. For example, one morning last week, I woke up with a strong mental image of a wall of black and white polka-dot straw hats.
Something Else About Sleep: The absolute worst way to wake up is a leg cramp. Being bitten by a wild animal may be even worse, but I haven’t experienced that and I hope never to, so I will continue to believe this.
Business Trip: I spent all of last week in Colorado Springs for a work-related conference. The weather was particularly crappy, including a couple of inches of snow on Tuesday morning (which had vanished by lunchtime) and lots of cold wind. And I didn’t really have free time to do anything besides work. At least work was decently productive. Also, I had dinner with my boss one evening, during which we mostly talked about music. It’s nice to know he has interesting taste, including a lot of the world fusion type of stuff I also listen to.
The meetings ended early enough on Friday that I was able to fly home that night, instead of having to waste half my weekend on airplanes, which is always good.
TCC Luncheon: Getting home for the weekend allowed me to get to the Travelers’ Century Club luncheon on Saturday. There was a lot of interesting conversation. It seems like the Guyanas are the current hot place for people to go. I’ve also concluded that I need to avoid one person, whose interests are just too far from mine to be worth discussing much with. I always have a reason for where I choose to go – typically wildlife, archaeological sites, and/or music. I don’t really understand people who just want to check off the country boxes and don’t want to spend time understanding a culture. Most TCCers are not just country collectors, but some (like this woman) can be pretty superficial.
JGSGW Meeting: Sunday was a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting. Dan Oren gave a good talk on various things he’s learned during his research. The most interesting anecdote had to do with the interpretation of the date on a tombstone, in which it turned out that the apparent date on the stone actually referred to the Torah portion for the week that the person died. He had several other interesting tidbits, emphasizing patience, continuing to relook at data, and collaborating with other people. It was definitely worth driving to Rockville in the rain for.
Less Stressed: I am not entirely unstressed with work things, but a phone call from a friend who I hadn’t talked with for a while helped quite a lot. We were talking about upcoming travel plans and I mentioned the trip I have planned for December, which includes 5 nights of wild camping in the desert. The conversation ran like this:
Her: oh, cool
Me: That’s why I like you. Everyone else I’ve mentioned this to said I’m nuts.
(I should note that she has some pretty out of the way trips of her own planned.)