Not much more to say

I think this will bring the blog to a close, at least for now. I know somebody or two still visits, because the hit counter continues to rise -- ever so slowly. But I have no new material to add, at least until we start planning a return visit.

That's not likely to happen next year, as it works out. Next year I'm looking at a trip to London for a speaking engagement -- my European manufacturers association wants to have their only native English-speaker (and vice-president) right up front, to the Ruhr valley (location not scenic, according to Kathy) for a technical event and then Rome in September.

The big question was on which trip Kathy would accompany me, London or Rome, but she wants so much for me to see Rome that's where we're gong to take a vacation. It doesn't hurt that she speaks Italian -- and when one of the Italians announced the Rome meeting, he wanted to be certain that I would bring Kathy. (She speaks every one of their languages save only Finnish and SuisseDeutsch or Swiss-German.)

So it looks like we'll be off to Rome and Italy and that will eat up what little time I can spare for a vacation, leaving the rest for the Christmas holidays. (More vacation than I could take this year, though I expect the intensity of the Smart Grid design effort to be backing off by next summer -- after all, the White House wants us to deliver "it" by the end of this year, but that's just not possible. Hopefully we'll roll out "Phase 1," the base elements, next year.)

Midland? Maybe in 2012. I do want to go back, with more time available, and to show Kathy more of Michigan. I got a little reminder today when, going through receipts to file the last two of seven expense reports, I found one from Midland. Though I don't remember eating at that place.

[flashback] We did have breakfast at Big Boy's, probably near the site of an old hotel restaurant I remember from the 60s (both hotel and restaurant gone now) and that's where Kathy remarked on the innate friendliness of Midlanders/Michiganders. [end flashback]

So, though I still think fondly on the old town from time to time, and definitely every time I fly from Seattle to Newark and pass overhead, I really don't have much more to say on this blog for the foreseeable future.

It is said you can't go home again, and I know now just how very true that is. But I had a good visit, 42+ years after I left, and it's my hope to visit again sometime soon, well before the MHS 50th reunion!

So, dear reader(s), I bid you good-bye, adieu, adios, auf weiderbyebye (;^), slàn leibh, ha det and more. At least for now.

I'll be back, sometime. In both senses.