Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

and i don't even have any musical ability, skill, or likely taste.

(listening to For What It's Worth)

Monday night I went to the Drupal event at MIT with Dries speaking and everyone was there, reconnected to lots of people– a wonderful Drupal evening

Then, with the excuse of dropping off the extra food, about a dozen of us went on a tour of the MIT Media Lab, which is a nerd's playground, complete with legos and robots and paintbrushes that pick up the color, texture, sound, and video of anything.

The elevator door opens on our way out, and there is the wonderful Kaveri, looking for a Yes Men talk. So I said catch you later to the Drupallers and went to that.

had a very realistic dream that my laptop's plastic casing started to crumble and it broke in half (actually one-third and two-thirds... and it kept running, sort of)... working and nodding off over it on a pier or something, in another country, got duct tape from one of those train station malls (sort of), after hours ... wasn't sure what city the nearest apple store was in ... was trying to contact Shreya to use her Applecare plan.

The last time G really talked to me, she said she was talking to my father, as the candle I lit for his Yartzheit continued to burn long after I left.

I wonder what he said to her.

Did he tell her off? The first sign that his relationships with women weren't perfect that I saw was "make sure she isn't after you for your money" when I mentioned I thought H might like to go with me.

Or did it come out that he had left his previous relationships – ok, marriages – more abruptly and completely and terribly than G then cut me off?

Reflecting on unreality is fun...

Fantastic evening. I don't see Brian enough. Dan is trying to move to Natick so I should start seeing him enough! Steve owns a Honda Insight so he is beyond cool already.

After meeting a few Drupallers at Lala Rokh I caught up with the male contingent of the bridal party, not at the top of the hub in the Prudential Center where I didn't go up to find them but at the next location, Cigarmasters on Boyleston Street.

http://rawa.org/rawa.html

Revolutionary Association of Women has been fighting for democracy and equality and against Soviet, Taliban, US, and so-called Northern Alliance usurpers in Afghanistan since before we were born.

Yay to Kaveri and many others for helping make Zoya's tour possible!

(More good food from a trash can -- the last of a vegetable fajita -- and this at Encuentro 5, where i should have competition for pulling stuff out of the trash.)

Drove out with Zelda late last night -- almost pulled over to sleep but then started feeling awake. (Mom is at Snow Farm.)

Beautiful weather.

Brought the old waterlogged Sunfish sailboat in alone (walked out into the nice cold water to float it in, next time will use Grandpa's plan of attaching a rope from it to shore at low tide, and reeling it in).

Tree guys took down another newly dead pine tree.

Snow in October, I love it. Giant flakes, snowball sized, and accumulation on the grass.

Piles of furniture-sized items outside of some houses, especially the big houses at the end of Fisher street, as I walked Zelda really for the first time since return from Europe. Must be a pick-up day coming. So much stuff, so much waste.

There was a television being thrown out larger than any we've ever owned.

When every other possibility has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbably, must be the truth:

The world is utterly insane.

Nodding off from food, core work, client work, and not much sleep. And the first hey w all know we gotta organize and change the world event in quite a while for me, thanks to Kaveri for helping bring Zoya of Rawa http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html

... to Encuentro 5 after the big rally, http://www.rawa.org/rawa/2009/10/17/zoya-keynote-speaker-in-october-17-a... (E5 is all i made it to)

I have a chipped tooth. A rough spot on the back, that is not junk. One of the middle lower two. In the back. Did it chip from overcrowding? Does Europe not fluoridate it's water, are the pro-fluoride conspiracists right and the anti-fluoride conspiracists wrong, and it got soft? Could it chip without encountering anything hard, that i know of, unless it's soft from a cavity on the inside? It doesn't hurt at all.

Texted two people on return to the U.S. Oct 12 and got texted back... and picked up by Manda and Rich, who had picked up their car at the airport 15-20 minutes previous!

Paris.

Stefan's father just came in and said he'd been working on a problem with a calendar being too wide for the page. All the settings were right, he said, reviewed code and everything, and finally found the problem.

A word in one day of the calendar that was so long it was making the whole calendar wider.

Welcome to web design in a country with a language that thinks if one word can say it well, five words smashed together into one can say it five times better!

Stefan and I went in search of Smiley Island. We didn't find it. However, we survived. I declare success.

Along the sidewalks and crosswalks everything in Germany is very neatly done and proper, with crosswalks so artfully done they could hang in our modern art museums, but I have seen the real dark and wild heart of Germany, and it is full of nettles.

That nettly swamp is as close to jungle as anything i've been in

I still haven't figured out if German families never blow their noses, or use secret handkerchiefs, or have very well-hidden tissue boxes.

Toilet paper has worked fine for me so far.

Plus, I do have a handkerchief along and laundry is done every two days.

admittedly, it is yellow and a lot of layers, but it didn't jump out, and the sign is tiny.

Great thanks to the internet store between 21 and 23 Via Marghera, the only person in 20 blocks to know what and where the beehive was.

Shame on Google for having the wrong address.

Amye and I were impressed that some street vendors at the major monuments were selling something as useful as small camera tripods.

And of course gelato (including fruit based!) and buschetta are always useful.

Paris is lovely, even for a very long walk.

Incredible time connecting with so many great people.

Never been to Paris before. Let me say, the entrance from Charles Degaulle airport by subway did not impress me, in the evening I was carting all my stuff and looking for that impossible combination of electricity (U.S. style plug!) and internet, and i still appreciate the small, clean, winding sometimes but sort of layed out to a plan streets, the charm of the buildings, even the fact that the only commercial establishments allowed within city limits are apparently ones that have to do with eating and/or drinking.

Teeth are still there.

Dental care suffered a bit in the travel. Need to pack a better toothbrush and enough floss next time.