Tuesday was mainly focused on Low Company, and settling back in. I got up quite late -- my protestations that exhaustion would fight off the jet lag didn't really pan out that way. I headed up to Finagle to pick up some decent bagels (having failed to see a bagel I would touch with a knife while I was in CA) for lunch and the next couple of breakfasts; while there, I noticed that Softpro appears to have gone away, which is a bit annoying, it having been a useful store.
After that, it was down to Outer Limits for my comics, and Compleat Gamester to pick up some Go boards. The latter was a complete lose: the guy behind the counter didn't even know what Go was, they had only one model, and they didn't have any open boxes to look at. *Sigh*. I went over to Danger Planet on the off-chance they might have such a thing (but knowing that was unlikely), before doing what I should have done in the first place: I called Three Trolls Games in Chelmsford. After confirming by phone that they had some decently portable sets, I drove up there, bought two sets and a poker chip box, schmoozed for far too long with
baron_saturday and his Dad, and headed briefly home.Following a brief layover, I picked up Alessandra and her roommate, and we headed into Harvard Square for Low Company. At this point, I made a serious tactical error, trying to take the Mass Pike and getting stuck in a massive traffic jam. Eventually we got there (a couple of minutes late), and I began to realize the larger strategic error: changing sites two days before the meeting had introduced massive confusion. I hadn't thought about it at the time, but I probably should have asked them not to switch. (The move was requested by Duncharloch, so that more of their members would actually show up -- Radcliffe was a bit too much of a walk last time.) Definitely an error not to repeat -- at least five people were adversely affected by the last-minute move.
So the meeting started rather late, but was fun nonetheless. We had about a dozen people there, which is a healthy crowd. The actual Go teaching was very quick (since the rules are very simple); at that point, they instructed everyone to just pair off and begin playing quick games. I played two games with Wentllian -- one fairly fast one that came out as a near tie, and one relatively slow one that kept see-sawing back and forth. We had Yaacov looking over our shoulders for most of the latter: he was all prepared to see the game end quickly, but we kept doing stuff he didn't expect. I won in the end, but only after nearly losing big a couple of times -- it was a really good game.
That should have been the end of the interesting bits of the day, but there was a postlude. As we got into bed, I found myself thinking, "I've forgotten something". About fifteen minutes later, I realized that I hadn't checked my work email since the beginning of the day. (I've been keeping myself in touch; in exchange, work is going to pay the exorbitant Internet bill for the hotels.) I knew that I was flirting with Murphy's Law, so I went downstairs. Sure enough: a P1 bug had landed on my plate in the middle of the afternoon. So I wound up awake from about 1-4am, analyzing the bug and sending around emails of how to look into it. (I may be in touch, and at home, but I'm not going in unless I have to.)
So today started even later. After eventually climbing out of bed at noonish, and dealing with "breakfast" and email, we embarked on the main task of the day: shopping.
msmemory wanted to take a wander through the Wrentham outlet mall, and she certainly wasn't doing it on Black Friday, so today was the day. I tagged along for company. It was pretty uneventful, aside from the traveling. After about ten miles on Route 95, we decided that that wasn't a good approach. So I had fun playing navigator, getting us to and from the mall via local roads.Actual cooking tonight, for the first time in well over a week! Mustard chicken with new potatoes for dinner -- we found a really delicious Raspberry-Wasabi mustard sauce while shopping, so that was the key flavor. And the apple crisp is just coming out of the oven, so it's time to finish this entry off...
