I've been bad and haven't updated my blog in a while. Have I lost interest? Not at all. My laptop is still hosed, and I've been out of the office and so away from my usual portal to creating blogs.

Out of the office, you ask? Details, please! Well, my good friend Chris from Colorado was here visiting me. He did one of those internet deals where you make a low offer on an airline trip, and it was accepted. So, I drove to Columbus last Thursday and picked him up. We played everything by ear but one thing he wanted to see was the Museum of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University. We drove along back roads to get there. It was a beautiful day, and we laughed about real or imagined Popular Culture exhibits and studies: Barbie Doll collections and Post Cards and lunchboxes, ho ho ho. I have never been to Bowling Green, and it was a great, friendly campus, reminding me of my years at Ball State. Much to Chris' (and my) disappointment, the Popular Culture studies house was closed ; the basement faculty offices were closed; the library exhibit was closed. The Fine Arts building was open, and we commented that its size was much larger than University of Colorado/Boulder or Colorado Springs' facilities, even though those are comparable or larger campuses. We saw a quilt exhibit ("Through the Needle's Eye"), and an art exhibit by a guy who basically took cartoon characters like Droopy, or the Campbell Soup Can Girl, and added a mush of colors and things that looked like eyes -- I enjoyed it actually, although who the hell knows what any of it meant: The painting titles were all along the lines of "Self Portrait as Droopy" or "Lust".

Some other interesting items to note at the Bowling Green campus: Its film studies and theater department, funded at least in part by two old movie stars, who had the campus theaters named after them: Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint (sp?). I know Lillian Gish was one of the major movie stars of the silent era and, I think, the original girl-tied-by-the-villian-to-the-railroad-tracks girl: Pauline, in the Perils of Pauline. (Oops. Nope, wrong. Gish was a D.W. Griffith star. Pauline was really Pearl White) I know of Eva Marie Saint from her role as femme fatale in "North by Northwest" and I guess a BGSU-alum. (Interestingly, the bio says David Letterman also attended BGSU. NOooooo: He went to Ball State. I saw in the Student Union, though, that Tim Conway went to BGSU -- he had a tile there, a la David Letterman, "from a 'D' Student," ha ha. Tim (or Tom as folks in my town know him) Conway, grew up in my home town.) Fifty years from now, will anyone know who they are outside of a few die-hard dusty academics?

It was a relatively cheap vacation: We also drove to my parents' house outside Cleveland and had a big laugh by going to a haunted house: Bloodview. We were the oldest folks by far there, mostly 14 year olds it seemed were in attendance, bored mothers reading in the mini-vans, and it seemed like the kids who were the actors had a lot of fun chasing us around, yelling, through the haunted woods and a building maze of ghouls, etc. I haven't laughed so much in a long time.

I was very nervous around my parents, and Chris caught me (for the first time since I've known him) chewing my nails and chomping on my teeth, embarrassing habits that has generally gotten better but still emerge when I've got "nerves". I had thought my parents would be hyper-critical, but no, they were quite impressed -- or maybe they're just telling me they are. "He's not at all like 'X'." Said my mom. Chris says he thought my parents might have thought we were a 'couple', he says my dad said something to him like, "No hanky-panky." But mom said "He's a very nice friend," with no emphasis on 'friend', so I don't think I need to clarify that with them.

Although we breezed out of there and back to Columbus, even the brief stay with the parents put me in a funk like the kind I had a couple of weeks ago after seeing them in Maine.

Chris really liked Columbus, and we made semi-serious comments about moving there and becoming room-mates. While there, we spent most of our time in the Short North, the very, very gay neighborhood. We did a pub crawl and discovered that this last weekend was a Circuitparty ("Chrome") so every place was packed with little kids. Chris was horny after the slim pickins of Colorado he said, so at about 3 in the morning, he begged to go to the Bathhouse -- bllch. It looked absolutely unappetizing to me: There were about twenty cars in the parking lot, generally beaters, and based on one guy and the employees, generally unattractive people. Meeooww!!! I told Chris that if he wanted to go to the bathhouse, I could leave him there, but he wanted me to go, too. I told him we could visit on our way back from Cleveland if he still had the desire. Cool.

On our final night in Columbus, we ate at a classy restaurant that served Tapas only -- basically h'ors d'oevres. Some of the best food I've had in a long time. There were a few other cute, young couples there, and one of the guys from one of those couples accosted Chris in the bathroom. Thank God! So, I hung out at the trendy video bar while Chris went back with him. I chatted with a couple of neglected little kids and watched show tune videos. I was surprised that I wasn't more jealous -- no one accosted me anywhere. But I almost had blinders on this past weekend -- I am not presently interested in any more no-connection connections. (Or, am I just really, really depressed?)

Oh well. Back at work. G product build was a success -- it went on-line this past weekend, earlier than planned, and with all enhancements falling into place. I review e-mails that alternately berate me for following "incorrect" procedures and congratulate me on getting everything done early and well within cost. Whatever.