The three of us wanted to get on the road for the eight-hour-plus trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, as early as was feasible; a lot of the packing was done the night before, but there were some last minute holdups, such as one of the dogs (Dot, often blamed as the model for Dick the wonder sheep) who is horribly diabetic and was going into hypoglycemia ( Read more... )

Just finishing up on my getting ready stuff for the trip to - oh, wait, I haven't really discussed that, have I ( Read more... )

Life it's own self, of course. Mere's got her cousins Kennedi (8) and Kailyn (9) visiting, and she's been having a great time with them. This also means that the three grownups here - me, marmot63 and her mom - have been working overtime with Kid Stuff to herd them and make sure they're kept busy and having fun. This week, they're in Cheerleader Camp ( Read more... )

The community that has been built up around kids adopted from China is amazing; I've distanced myself a little from it as time has gone on, because the whole of what my daughter is has something to do with her old home, and everything to do with her and the life she has now, here in America.  To totally obsess on China is silly, any more than I ( Read more... )

• Sometimes the damn monkeys just get to you, ya know?
• Boy, I'm glad Mere's not in Jiangmen today...
• A result of the collapse of the Russian public health systme, as AIDS affects nearly 1% of the population. 
• We worry about things like gay marriage; the big social outrage in Saudi is having women selling other women their underwear.
• I don't think this ( Read more... )

Corrections made.

Just some pictures of Las Vegas for you.  Other people took them; since I don't have a camera with me, this is the best I can do.

So you have this, and it's like a mostly-the-same-size version; very big - here's a picture from the top of it.  Lots and lots of these everywhere.  Lots of people everywhere.

Some of the hotels are ( Read more... )

Sitting at my hotel in North Carolina; I'm really tired, and will probably go to bed soon. As I'd guessed, my stamina is for sludge, and lugging around the usual stuff in the airports and to my room alone did me in. Had a quiet dinner at the hotel's main restaurant, with a friend from work who is also here for the web conference. She tried to ( Read more... )

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