Hmmm. Flew into town late last Tuesday night. Thanks, Karen, for putting me up at your place for a few nights. You have a gift of hospitality that will be returned may times in the future.

Wednesday

Regained conciousness and lumbered over to campus around noon. Saw a few friendly faces wandering around the halls, etc. Listened to Jim curse me for forgetting some of the most basic Unix stuff, but hey, five months of VMS does a lot of damage. Alas, I stumble onto the d&e instance, and it's like old times again. dxtools? fuck you too.

You might as well throw a pile of rocks on the floor in Jim's office, it's like a sauna in there these days. Went and bought some more CMU spoo for family, etc. and strode back to Jim's office in time to start the evening's activites. I think that this was the first time that a party was designed and realized using a web page. Eeek. But cool.

If Steve had a valid picture ID (OK, valid PA license), we'd have started at Fatheads, but Nooooo. So we bailed the cheap-ass place and motored to the Spaghetti whorehouse to fix our rumbling stomachs. Met Dan L. and a few others (me thinks) there. Afterwards, we roll ourselves over to Kaya to buy overpriced and watered-down rum drinks and take in the place - cool design and construction, but too yuppie for me. But they had an excellent single malt scotch, a 15 year old Laphroig (pardon the probable misspelling). A bunch of people cruise home for the evening but the rest of us tool over to PHI to meet more of the gang.

Met Chris, Kevin, Joby, Eeyore's roomate (forget the name), and others. We (probably around ten of us - the memories are fuzzy) did at least 15 pitchers of purple hooters. Moose looked like a convert at an olde-time weekend tent meeting (hands in the air, singing, etc.), and kept on falling back into Jim's arms. What a sight. Many brain cells died a death of valor. Some of us played pinball, I think. The bathrooms were as dirty as usual and I think I may have been accosted by a drunken female of an undetermined species.

Sometime around here, Thursday became

You may be getting the idea that a number of kinds of alchohol went into this drunken stupor. You, sir or madame, are correct. Ouch.

We stumble over to campus. With plans on our mind. A sight never seen before on the CMU campus, and one likely not to be seen again. There was a bit of planning. Performance art of the highest elevation. Born of fire, accomplished in rain, witnessed by many. As with all good things, it didn't last. The trapdoor was open until Saturday night, though. Hee hee.

I'm leaving out a number of details here. Not because of dead brain cells, but because there won't be a public disclosure until the statute of limitations runs out.

Heh.

A few of us haven't had enough drinking yet. Jim lures us over to thier place with rumors of a 12 year old single-malt scotch. Kevin & I try to convince Steve of the importance of volume market pressures on the acceptance of various software products. Perhaps unsuccessfully. Jim falls asleep (passes out?), contributing only snores to the conversation. Some host. Kevin & I decide to call it a night because, well, the night ended. Drop him off at Chris & Mandy's place and drop into Karen's couch around 6:00.

But I had to take some people to lunch at noon. Ouch. Two gallons of water and 2g of tylenol would not stop the pounding. After lunch I stop by Jim's office - he's heading home and looking like he shouldn't have gotten out of bed. The instance is pretty quiet. Typing is too damn loud. At least I'm not puking. Yet.

Watched the Pens beat the Capitols on TV. No beer. Please. Sleep. Good.

Friday

Mom, my grandfather, and his girlfriend arrive at Greater Pitt. Pick them up, show them a bit of town, have dinner at Max & Irma's. Nice. The day's travel has taken it out of grandpa (after all, he's 93), so they all crash for the evening. The MSE gang (well the few of us that were in town and not otherwise busy with family) gets together and cruises over to Mad Mex, where a number (alright, 4) of d&e'ers started the evening earlier. Eeyore is counting the drinks he consumes by making marks on his wrists. I wonder privately if the marks are some kind of wrist-based suicide by alchohol.

Quote of the evening - "oh, that's your thumb, not your toungue". Someone was trying to rub Eeyore's marks off his wrist... Not me.

Saturday

Family stuff. Grandpa used to be part of the steel industry in Minneapolis, so we drive down the Mon vally looking at all the ruins. Kinda eerie, but a sign of progress anyway. Criused the Strip District and spend a bit of time out on the point.

Had dinner at the Cliffside on Mt. Washington. Great view, perfect weather, good food. Sigh.

Sunday

Graduation. Cool. It feels wierd to close this chapter in my life.

Met Fleur in person. It's always nice to put a real person behind their electronic presence. Same goes for Kevin, Chris, and Joby. I hope too meet the rest of you someday.

Moose may *not* call me batboy anymore. As of the time I crossed the platform, it's now batman. Or as Karen puts it, Master batman. Heh.

The weather was perfect.

Monday

Of all of the travelling I've done in the past 5 years (over 300,000 miles on Delta), this was one of the worst days. Entered Greater Pitt at 8:00 a.m. to get family going. My flight was supposed to leave at 10:50 but doesn't depart until 12:45. Of course I miss the connection in Cincinati (sp) and have to sit in *that* goddam airport until 7:00. I get off the plane in Colorado Springs at 8:00 MST, about 14 hours after I entered Pgh's airport. Fuck. Someone needed to kill me badly yesterday.

Tuesday

325 mail messages.

Only 2 crises.

Digital's net-nazis have issued us a memo officially telling us to ignore message about the "good times" bullshit. I refuse to call it a virus. Would someone please kill me now?

Quote of the day:

"- the cause of death was asphyxiation through inhalation of
   air having an excessively low oxygen content;"

Later,
Kent