No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Vacation

The great thing about going to a Tim Hortons in the States is that you can say to an American, "I'll have a double double," and they know what you mean. One day, someone in Texas is going to order a double double without thinking twice about it, and on that day, we win.

I got your cultural imperialism right here.

So. The States.

Iowa is America's Heartland, with all that implies. I had chicken fried steak for breakfast twice, and chicken fried chicken once. All three times with that awesome white pepper gravy. You can get baked apples as a side dish everywhere, too, which is awesome. Stay away from the dumplings though, they don't seem to know what that is.

The family was great. All these cousins that I haven't seen since we were all kids, they all have kids of their own. The whole damn family (that side of it, at least) turned up. Beer was drunk, awesome corn-fed local pork chops were eaten, the breeze was shot, a pool was swum in and good times were had.

We then decided to take advantage of the extra time in our schedule to go to Maryland and visit the sister unit and her hubby. We spent the day in Baltimore, going first to the National Aquarium. It's pretty seriously awesome. There are fiiish. Check my sister's Facebook page for more details.

We took a tour of the USS Constellation, a wooden sailing ship which is being refitted. By tour, I mean that we wandered around unsupervised. The spaces below decks are amazingly cramped. I couldn't stand upright anywhere under the top deck. My lovely wife was more comfortable in that regard.

Then we finished it off with dinner on the waterfront. I had probably the best clam chowder I've ever had, ate some amazing crab cakes, and then bought a bunch of pint glasses, which they were foolishly selling for two bucks a pop. I thought I'd heard her wrong, but no.

All in all, an excellent vacation. +1, I approve.

And Then

Work has been ridiculous. Fires ahoy! If I seem to be ignoring you when I'm at work, it's nothing personal, I just don't have time to think, let alone talk.

Upcoming

A bunch of aunts and uncles on my lovely wife's side of the family are coming to visit on Thursday. They are in town for the Hong Kong Vets memorial unveiling, which we unfortunately won't be able to attend due to a long-since pre-arranged camping expedition. They will be staying at our casa for the weekend.

We might make it out to Greek Fest with them on Thursday, so hopefully we might meet up with some of y'all there.

Hopefully sometime thereafter, things will settle down from their hitherto frantic pace. I remain optimistic. There's a bunch of folks I haven't seen in a while, what with vacationing and camping and other activities. Get togethers need to be planned.

Vegetarians

This one is for the Greek and DiveBunny.