There are lessons to be learned from keeping a blog. One that I’m in
the process of learning is that my blog serves as some kind of a
barometer of what’s going on in my life. There’s obvious sense to
this, I write about things going on in my life. But what I’m finding
interesting is when I am not writing in the blog. I think it’s an
indicator that I’m feeling at least mildly overwhelmed with something.
This can be as simple as being busy with other things, but it can also
be more complicated, and both simple and complicated factors have
contributed to the 1.5 month hiatus that I’m ending now.

It all started with a bike ride. After the disturbing feeling of
being interrupted that I described in my previous post, I decided to
set off in the same direction again the following Saturday, which was
the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. This ride felt much better to
me. Adventurous, in control of the experience, several unexpected
experiences (from the rite of passage of repairing a flat on the road
to a surprising number of animal encounters). I had a great time, and
I came home excited to make [my map](
http://www.bloomington.in.us/~drernst/gmaps/20060527-paragon.html) of
the experience, share [my
pictures](http://www.bloomington.in.us/~drernst/200605-paragon-brief/),
and write about it.

I got to work on that, including play with some new options of the
[GPS Visualizer](http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/), but then a most
unusual thing happened. I got a phone call the next morning from the
roommate of a co-worker of mine, Jim Hurd. He called to tell me that
Jim had died. That morning. In his sleep. Seemingly peacefully.
But without much warning.

The rest of the weekend felt totally bizarre to me. I got off the
phone and thought “I was going to make an omelet. Do I still make an
omelet even though Jim is dead?” I decided that, yes, I do still make
the omelet, but … yeah, it was really weird. We all spend so much
time thinking about living long and healthy lives, the simple finality
of Jim being dead seemed bizarre, not to mention very sad.

Making the omelet was one thing, but writing in my blog about a bike
ride suddenly seemed too inane to put effort in to. I did continue
about the weekend with several other activities, notably taking many
of my Informatics friends out for their newly earned Masters’ Drink.
Like everything else, though, this had a surreal tint to it for me.

Getting back to work was actually very therapeutic in this situation.
I was around other people who felt weird in the same way I was, and
that was ironically helpful to my sense of feeling weird. Things
started to settle down a bit as the week progressed. Looking back at
it, it would have made good sense to write something in the blog the
weekend after Memorial Day. But, I didn’t. I did have a wonderful
Ethiopian meal with Amy and Kathleen on Saturday night, followed by a
fun festival of short films. And, on Sunday, Priscilla and I spent a
delightful afternoon, a bike ride followed by a few hours of eating
and talking.

At the same time, I knew I was gearing up for a full month of busy
schedule. My garden/yard was yelling for attention, and I needed to
deal with this before I left town on the following weekend. I did get
a fair amount done that weekend which was good. But this busy-ness
definitely made it hard to imagine sitting down to the blog,
especially since I still didn’t know what to say about everything.

Well, another week rolled by, and it was time to leave town. I stayed
later than I expected so that I could attend Jim’s memorial service on
Saturday June 10. I drove straight from there to Dance Trance in
Lexington, KY, which was good fun. Tom put me up in his home in
nearby Berea that night, and I left the next morning on the *long*
drive to Emerald Isle, NC.

I had geared up for a long drive. I had *Harry Potter and the Order
of the Phoenix* on tape, the fifth in the series that I am slowly but
methodically making my way through. As usual, it succeeded
wonderfully in keeping me company on the long drive. And, being as it
lasts 27 hours, I was in no danger of running out of material before I
got there (I *was* wondering if it would last me for the whole ride
home (which it almost, but not quite, did)).

The drive started off nice enough, my plan to drive through Cumberland
Gap seemed to be a perfectly reasonable way to enjoy the trip without
adding much time. However, the definitive moment of the experience
was when I learned that I-40 near Great Smoky Mountains National Park
and just west of Asheville, NC, was *closed*. Totally closed. No
detour. Three highway workers were handing out slips of paper with
the official “detour” (I am not normally one to complain about highway
workers, but… three workers to hand out slips of paper??!?) which
was to drive most of the way back to Knoxville, TN, and take I-81 and
squiggle back down south for a while. Seeing little alternative, this
is what I did, now keeping myself company with a loud stream of
profanity.

I estimate that this problem added 2-3 hours to my already
ridiculously long trip. I am very upset that the signage was not
better. But, I do not want to relive that rage, so I’ll just leave it
at that.

Harry was starting to study occlumency by the time I was nearing the
coast of NC. I had an enjoyable but confusing conversation with my
brother Steven on my cell phone, trying to figure out the last 4 miles
of my drive. But, once I was there, I was surrounded by food, drink,
and my loving and fun-loving family.

I liked the way my cousin-in-law (?) Josh described it… something
like: “People at work said things like ‘wow, that sounds like a great
vacation! So relaxing!’. I tried to explain… ‘it will be fun,
low-stress, a nice change of pace from normal responsibilities, but I
don’t think that I’ll be coming back to work feeling at all rested.'”
Basically, my family members and I just can’t resist having fun when
we’re together. So, every day for a week was a bunch of swimming and
beach games during the day, eating, drinking, and strategy/chance
games by night. I’m pretty accustomed to that pattern, we’ve done
this kind of thing together all my life. What’s newer is that many of
those in my generation now have young children. So, the party still
ends at 2am or later, but now it starts up again around 7am. For me,
this definitely gave the impression that the party was really going on
the whole time. Grand fun. But not exactly restful.

The drive home was thankfully more boring than the drive there. I
left on Saturday, slept a good long while in a rest area, and arrived
home early Sunday afternoon, plenty of time for a nap and then an
evening at home. This was good, because it was time to start the
annual ritual of the week-long preparation for my Decadent Garden
Party. This I did, thus spending most of my free time that week
cleaning, cooking, researching recipes, and grocery shopping.

Sue and Michael arrived from Portland on Friday morning, and all in
all the party went very well. The weather was nearly perfect, we were
able to eat outside and there were only a few small unexpected
problems… This was the tenth party, and a number of the guests
conspired to get me wonderful place setting and other adornments.
Very very nice. And, the party, the surrounding activities, and the
presence of Sue and Michael provided good instigation for spending
quality time with some long-time friends who I don’t see very often,
and to introduce them to some of my newer friends and vice-versa. So,
that was all very fun…

But, to return to the theme of this post, having all that going on was
not conducive to sitting down to write a blog post, which by this
point had felt like it had grown hugely in significance since it had
been so long since the previous one…

Before I knew it, we were on our way to Sue’s sister’s house, (well)
outside of Indy, to spend the July 4th holiday weekend with Sue’s
family. This was also good fun. Sue’s brother in law is a brilliant
carpenter and the house that he built his family is amazing. So, we
spent a few days playing games, notably a highly spirited game of
basketball the first day that left me moving a bit more slowly the
rest of the weekend.

Michael left on the 4th, and Sue and I both flew out on Saturday
morning. She returned home, I headed off to Philadelphia for the
wedding of my friends Dan and Reena. I started this post on the way,
and now I have just arrived home. The wedding was fantastic, Reena and
Dan showed off their remarkable creativity and organizational skills,
and created a fun, meaningful, and beautiful ceremony, not to mention
the associated parties. Perhaps the best thing about weddings,
though, is meeting your loved ones’ other loved ones, and this was
also very fun and satisfying.

Today I toured around Philly a bit, which I hope to write about in a
separate post! Because I hope that *this* post represents my return
to more regular blogging! Because, for as much fun I’ve had in the
past month, traveling, entertaining, and visiting some of the most
important players in the history of my life, I do love my more normal
daily routine, my local friends, and my home. So, an irony of the
information age, I’ll stay home more, but perhaps be in better touch.
We’ll see….