Travels to The East

No, not a trip to the Aurient, but a couple of days across the border in [gulp] Devon for Tools'04. Why is it a simple two night break causes my folks to feel the necessity of cleaning the whole house from top to bottom before we go? Are they expecting some really critical burglars to pay a vist, run their fingers across dusty surfaces and go "tut tut. I ain't sullying my lilywhites knocking off this flea pit"? In which case surely it'd be better to leave it messy? I asked pop if he was planning on grouting the bathroom too, but the literary reference was lost on him. The cats, of course, are getting predictably nervous at the appearance of suitcases. Even the parrots expressed alarm at fresh cat litter appearing in the bottom of their cages instead of newspaper. Honestly, we might as well hang out a big sign saying "going away"... Still, hopefully the show itself will make up for the preparations. There seems to be an inordinately long list of folks connected to UK Workshop who I'm supposed to be meeting - or just saying "hi" to. Funny feeling having a busy social calendar when I'm usually slightly less likely to be meeting up with someone than a reclusive hermit. Still having an internal debate about whether to risk wearing my Galoot hat or not. On the one hand it might be fun to see a) who notices, and b) if any hitherto unknown lurkers reveal themselves. On the other hand someone might notice and goodness only knows who lurks...

More later - maybe. Oh, and that download yesterday. My idiot elder brother (needless to say with Broadband) and four enormous image files. D'oh.