trips and new developments

Again with the whole been 'too busy living life to blog about it' thing.

Took three trips in two weeks a bit ago. Missouri for a conference (excellent conference, by the way), the usual Palmyra run plus some shopping, and then Philly for some usability studies for work, which went pretty well.

In Philly, went out to dinner with the Director of Admissions of one of our campuses there and his family. He lives in Center City, in what's nicknamed the "Gayborhood," which is an amazing part of Philly.

I'd never really been to Philly proper: before only once, on an in-and-out run to a Garbage concert, which doesn't really count. But this time, I was able to take my time and look around. It's really gorgeous in some areas: very European, very historic.

I took a ton of pictures, one entire memory card full of pictures from Eastern State Penitentiary: a former state prison, since abandoned, but more recently reclaimed and stabilized as a preserved ruin. Amazing material. Slowly going through those photos now. Here are the sets thus far from Eastern State Penitentiary, Penn State Abington (the aforementioned campus), and around Philadelphia.

But all those trips in succession ended up making me way too crammed--ran myself a bit into the ground. Especially with Halloween right on their heels, which involved three get-togethers over the weekend, plus oatmeal-raisin cookie making with my neighbor. Thank goodness one of my costumes was multiple-use-friendly, or one of the three would have been out of luck.

Been hanging out quite a bit with my neighbor, a grad in the film department. We've never yet run out of things to talk about. My Netflix list of DVDs to watch is growing faster than I can keep up with it.

Got officially hooked on Fringe thanks to Hulu. Who needs cable TV? Everything I watch is online these days.

More trips to come. Next week's another Palmyra run, then Chicago/Wisconsin. Connecting up with a bunch of old friends and family, among other things.

Have another sinus infection. And strangely enough, as I was picking up my antibiotics, the pharmacist stopped me to ask about my last name. His is the same, and it's an unusual spelling. We started talking about our Danish relatives. And we might be related somehow. The immigration stories are the same--Ellis Island to Wisconsin--and the changed spelling too. The first name of his father wasn't familiar to me, and the initial was wrong (that side of my family has consistent initials), but it might've been a different branch.

I gave him my email address: he'll email me to get the link to the Geni family tree I've been working on. Which I'm going to add to once I pick up the more complete paper version that my uncle has.

Serendipity, you know? Odd little coincidences that seem to have been happening a lot lately. It's a pretty neat feeling. And there may be more to come.