Apres le deluge

and by that, I mean, I haven't written in a while, so this will be a lot of randomness.

First, by proximity in time and degree of randomness, I think that my time in Europe has made me better with change. By "change" I mean coins. I mean, coins don't really mean anything here and so you wind up having a million of them. But as I found myself giving relatively exact change (20.26 for a 15.16 charge), I realised that I have a better respect for coins. Of course now I'm collecting a set of odd looks from merchants.

Second, just returned home yesterday from a week in DC. Lola and I finished sorting out the chaff from the wheat with regards to what we put into storage 6 years ago. We made a nice donation to the goodwill. And now the remainder is on a truck headed toward us.

At least I hope so. More on that story if it develops.

Four things from that trip:

1) We won't be travelling with the boys for a little while. Like a year. I walked most of the way to DC because the little guy insisted on roaming the aisles. We took Virgin America which was great, and the staff were great. Most of the fellow passengers were great as well. One guy who was a reject from Pimp My Ride tried to take a tone with me ("You better watch your kid man") so I kicked his ass to show the boys how to deal with that sort of nonsense.

All in all, the boys were great, but it's frankly exhausting to get them through security, on board, entertained and off the plane again.

2) Was odd to be back in DC. Good to see everyone, but odd being back.

3) The boys loved Holloween. The big guy ran up to everyone's door and got a good haul. Didn't really care about the candy. Just liked yelling "Trick or Treat!"

4) We all got a flu/cold thing somewhere along the way.

And because of the last, I'm gonna hit the sack rather than go into my discourses on America as an EU with a common infrastructure, the continued travails of the job hunt, Joe Jackson meets the the Rolling Stones, etc.

But a last observation: saw a guy with a Prius in the driveway using a leaf blower in front of his house.