OK, I realized I never finished posting my report from Rochester. So much has been happening! Never a dull moment.

Memorial weekend George, Jennifer & Rachel (yes, the gang from Rochacha) decided to make a last-minute trip to visit Omaha. Lots to rearrange, but had a blast. Being a tourist in my own town - walked the new pedestrian bridge on a perfect afternoon. Walked the zoo with many memorable moments including the giraffe’s tongue obsession (pic), the orangutan’s begging, the massive koi feeding, the butterflies, alligators & nutria, and the giant evil wild rabbit (something that I had repressed for decades straight out of the Twilight Zone movie). We feasted on local BBQ & watched a movie at home. On Sunday we visited the local rabbit show in Seward that my sister was judging, met up with the grandparents & rest of the family, and then attended Wicked (pic). Even though we couldn’t get tickets all together, it was an amazing show! The wonderful trio left very early on Monday morning to make their 20 hour drive back to Rochester in time to get rest for work on Tuesday - crazy wonderful!

So, with only a few hours of sleep myself, I hosted my family and the extended maternal fam at my house all day. I had 15 people over, TONS of great food, and hours of fun playing badminton and Rock Band. A perfect day/weekend!

The next day (Tues) my good HS friend, Clint, showed up to stay/visit with me for a couple days. He’s keeping very busy and currently runs his own e-reader store, cyberread.com, among other projects. We caught up each evening and played lots of evenly-matched table tennis.

By Thursday I was off to Washington, DC, to attend Inner Journey “retreat” weekend in the hills of VA. What an incredible and enlightening experience! Three days of exploring our masculine & feminine sides, pushing our bodies, opening up to fully experience the world around us. I made some wonderful new friends (though sadly, they’re all in the DC area) that I plan to be in touch with for years to come. I also got to see Prea before she flew off to Bangladesh. I highly recommend this program - they have seminars in San Francisco, Chicago & DC throughout the year.

Couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the month. Never a dull moment! (some things are worth repeating)

Oh, what a weekend!

Notice that I’ve added a lot of new pictures from this month. I took a short vacation weekend to visit Rochester, NY - primarily to see George & Jenn, but their families and many other friends I haven’t seen in many years. Little did I know that this was UR graduation weekend, so many people were very busy with these events at UR or left town to get away from it all.

Friday afternoon I arrived at the university to visit with Berthenia at the computer library (used to be called CLARC) - she fed me lunch to my complete satisfaction. I then caught up with Laura B. at Wilson Commons (she’s very pregnant). Got a whole hour chatting with VP Paul Burgett (pic) - which I still find amazing since he was packed with graduation events to attend and speak at. Briefly saw the chair of physics, Professor Nick B., and A/V head, Matt Felthousen. While everything looked great, it did feel weird knowing so few of the folks on campus. Probably only recognized 4-5 others during my 3 hour tour.

George picked me up and we went and visited with Anne-Marie Algier (pic) at her 10-year old’s baseball game. We also got our Buffalo wing quota over at the Distillery. We played xbox & several boards games over the weekend. Amusing that I need to take a vacation to be able to do such things! On Saturday I visited the Lilac Festival with Jennifer, Sean & the three kids (11, 5 & 2 yrs old). Lots to see, plenty warm, and I became the cotton candy dispenser on the walk home. Aiden (5 yr-old) commented: “I think you’ve given Faith (2 yr-old) enough cotton candy. No more for her!”. Jennifer & I went to Wegmans (which continues to impress me) where I stocked up on food/drinks for a party at a lodge next to a pond in Webster, NY that I rented for the evening. Several came out to visit in person (pics) - we played a couple games and mostly just ate & caught up. Good times!

Sunday was more of the same - mostly playing games with George, but caught dinner with Jennifer and the three of us bonded (pics). So good that George got to meet several of my Rochester friends. I like being “the connector” (Doug’s term for me). George & I wrapped up the weekend with an introductory game of Agricola (pic) - what a wonderful game! I also made a couple new friends in the Rochester area as well - always room to know more good people! I’m very glad I made the trip. Will have to plan one again for next year!

Tonight, with the help of 6 other great friends, we played all 84 songs in Rock Band 2’s Endless Setlist going non-stop getting 5-stars on each song (medium difficulty) without any pauses (~6.5 hours). It’s an arduous task as there were several times the mic wasn’t working, or we feared a cord being unplugged, or when the xbox started to freeze or even two songs where we got the 5th star on the last notes we played together. Crazy! THe last couple hours were the toughest as the songs were harder and, for the most part, not fun to sing along to (lots of speed metal), but we persevered. Thanks to Sarah (drummer extraordinaire), Ben (string guru), Troy (Mr Bass Man), Eric (it’s OK, I can sing it), Vickie (How does this song go?), and Merinda (arrived for the last hour to sing this crap?). Pictures added shortly (we filmed it at various times for posterity).

Yesterday I hosted a game night and put up my new badminton set in the back (after spending the day trimming the trees to make room for it all). It’s a perfect, though tight, fit and we played into the night using glowing birdies - fun! Had another great turnout - ~14 for games. Mandi also stopped by earlier in the week for a game night in her honor with a high of 13 for a Wed night and folks staying until near 1am after tons of good food and fellowship. I truly feel lucky to have such great friends!

Also related to the bladder, last weekend Lizzy & I drove to Wichita on Saturday, visited with high school friends (Clint!), caught up with Fred, and had dinner with my mother & Grandmother, then drove to Dallas to see the King Tut exhibit, stayed with Bavana (the perfect hostess) and drove back to Omaha straight on Monday arriving 10 hours later just in time to play 90mins of ultimate frisbee. Lizzy tried to hold out ~2.5 hours between potty breaks (she hardly drank anything to help). We also enjoyed some Braums twice that weekend - joy!

Weekly movie nights continue to go well. It’s hard to spend much time in the dark basement though with it being so nice and light late into the evening.

Arthur has been more of a pain than usual this past month or so. I’m changing meds after 10 years - a bit anxious about it all. In another not so positive observation, I’m reminded again at how small Omaha still is. Still very single after my 2 years here.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom & Grandmas!