long weekend. good, good weekend. note: I am, after 8+months of driving it, already at 10,000 miles on the car. note: I am the gas guzzling american. note: I do get better than 30 miles a gallon, without fail.

thankgiving night: big wej and sacks. grandpa's. super. plans to revisit death to smoochy were hatched. the boy will drive. weekend begins with guns a-blazin.
friday: sleep late...haven't done that in forever...and arise. watch local team aledo pull out the 2a state championship. head north, to michigan. unstadt family hanukah celebration. the chicken and latkes are superb. as is the salad. water is wonderful. family is super. we discuss myron cope, minor league baseball, and the four editions of the lord of the rings dvd release. dan as charlie chaplin is also discussed. unstadt and i head out on the town. four dollar cover at empty rick's american cafe. but the catching up needed to be done, and those pitchers [apparently priced according to how much the bartender/waitress likes the purchaser...i was more preferred than unstadt. woof] needed to be drank/drunk. hooked up with the nemo/carrie/jeff/josh/caleb the cherub/munro/megan crew. the latter four got in. we did not. returned to nemo's. made small talk. carrie left. i took dan home. i returned and found c on my reserved sleeping couch. madness ensued. more on that later.
saturday: here's the lowedown. nemo and i got a later than planned start. got to the mike lowe residence [quite nice, aside from the cell -like windows] i would guess around noon. time for a tour, a lunch at panera [mike got the soup and salad...i was jealous]. conversation sparkling. rich johnson, darren rovell, rick morris, local news. all interesting. after a brief detour [can I follow a car, dammit?] we went to the station. mike = stellar as we knew he would be. and still the same guy...he introduced us to the fellow newsroom folk as 'i just found these two guys at subway, and though they could help out a little.'
return to ann arbor. sleep a bit. gear up for the irish. eat impossible cheeseburger pie. superb [as good as advertised, in fact]. c calls. 'do you like that guy? [i made no impression, apparently] / [after clearing up, flash forward---] 'yeah, he's one of my better friends from northwestern' / 'good. because i liked him. he's kind of dorky, but dorky like us.' dorky like a nemo...consider me proud.
ping pong and trumpet with nemo and carrie and jeff and josh. mccain on snl. super evening.
sunday. breakfast at margie's. like cheeseburger pie, but in the morning, and better. [english muffins with cheese and egg and ham, for the record] driving. about 480 miles, or so. nemo provided company. jeff joniak provided inane radio. inane, in this case, means HORRIBLE.
and now i'm back, and now work begins tomorrow, and now the wixinator will not be there. i'm sad. because of the latter two. davenport is nice.