I'm a-leavin' on a jet plane (puddle-jumper, actually) for the wilds of Alabama and Arkansas and not-so-wilds of Tennessee for an extended weekend visit to my hometown of Hughes, Arkansas. It seems that the student body of the school district is so small that the district is being consolidated with Forrest City -- a community about thirty miles ( Read more... )

How are you? I'm good, really good. My summer has been pretty full with a couple of business trips, ten days of vacation in the deep south with my family and friends, and miscellaneous weekend shenanigans ( Read more... )

Last Saturday we took off for a week of fun which was unlike any other vacation to my folks' house. For one, no one was home when we arrived. We expected this as Mom and Pete were down at their under construction lake house in NW Alabama and baby brother John was still in Knoxville to finish up summer school exams. With that knowledge, we took our ( Read more... )

I took an impromptu trip to Memphis for my great aunt's funeral which, despite the reason for the trip, was pretty enjoyable. zipmeister retrieved me from the airport and spent most of Tuesday evening visiting with me, Mom, and Pete. Wednesday was Aunt Bernadine's memorial service in Arkansas and one couldn't ask for a more beautiful day in which to be in a ( Read more... )

I'm heading to Memphis this afternoon so I can attend my great aunt's funeral in Arkansas tomorrow. It's okay... she was 94 and had been in poor health and bedridden for a couple of years. I'm so glad that I got to see her when Hubbyfink and I decided on the spur of the moment to visit my dad's cousins and aunt and uncle when we were in Arkansas a ( Read more... )

We spent the past week with my family in Germantown, TN; Cherokee, AL; and Greers Ferry, AR. It felt like we were constantly on the road, probably because we were. Arrived at Mom's house on the 2nd, spent the day at their lake house -- actually, more time was spent in the lake rather than the house -- in Alabama on the 3rd, and watched my brother beaznuts ( Read more... )

Hubbyfink and I spent last week in the company of family and friends in Germantown and Arkansas. There was many a cookout, lots of time spent splashing about in the pool, playing with nephews, and a couple cut-throat games of Scrabble. We spent a fair amount of time with zipmeister. Mom and I spent an even fairer amount of time shopping. Johnny's twentieth ( Read more... )

Having a great visit thus far even though both Hubbyfink and I are are burnt to respective crisps thanks to extended soaking in the pool this morning. Mom bought a ping pong table this afternoon (she woke up with a craving for one... I usually wake up simply craving doughnuts) and Johnny spent this evening soundly spanking all of us at table tennis ( Read more... )

It's been a lovely visit. Mom and I got lots of quality time together and not all of it was spent harvesting our Farmville crops. I even got to spend a fair amount of time with the siblings. We're all usually so rushed during these visits. I'm not sure what made the difference this time.

beaz and Melinda's baby still hasn't arrived, but he's dropped ( Read more... )

On the phone at 8am for a conference call with the Indians, then got assigned a hot project (completely unrelated to India) which needed to be completed before I left town. Nine hours later I handed the nearly-finished document to my boss so that he could finish futzing with the last Visio drawing which wouldn't copy correctly into the document. He ( Read more... )