For the curious, I made it. To Maine.
The journey wasn’t so fun, and I was unable to escape some minor claw damage, but Az and I made it. As the Twitter followers may already be aware, the experiment cooked up my highly recommended Denver vet, Dr. Cassie Todd, and myself to try Valium as a superior alternative to the mild sedative Az uses for long distance travel was unsuccessful. Like an adult on Ritalin, she became more powerful and more angry, rather than less. To the point that I was being actively stalked.
So back to the Acepromazine we went, which makes the transit maybe five or ten percent less miserable by inducing symptoms in felines that would be familiar to anyone who’s spent a long night at the House of Shields. Or had one too many Dark ‘N Stormies.
Once here, however, all is forgiven. Az and I may love Maine for different reasons, but we’re both fans of Vacationland. Where I enjoy being on the water and near the Sox, the cottages here are paradise for a city-dwelling cat deprived of squirrels, birds and field mice to visually hunt through the window.
In other news, my storms follow, as usual. The day I left Denver, it snowed. Hard. Yesterday, with me gone? Beautiful. The weather here in Maine has shown a greater resistance, but none can stand for long: Sunday‘s forecast includes the always enjoyable rain/fog combo along with highs in the 40’s. My apologies to everyone involved.
Speaking of Sunday, I’ll be here in Maine until then, at which point I’ll be en route out to San Francisco for the RedMonk Unconference @ CommunityOne (which you all are hereby ordered to attend) and JavaOne. Arriving late night Sunday, I’ll be departing Wednesday back to Maine. Unlike last year, I had my car shipped out to Maine via truck transport, so I don’t have to stop back in Denver to drive it out. For which I’m truly thankful.
Just as I’m thankful for the opportunity to be live in two geographies, as I do. While I’ll miss my Denver friends and the ability to walk to virtually anything of any consequence – town is 9 miles away from Georgetown – it’s great to be here. Any of you that were already here should get in touch, incidentally; let’s grab lunch or a beer or something. Preferably over a Sox game.
Couple of logistical notes:
Bandwidth
It’s unlikely to be an issue because I’m away the early part of next week anyhow, but there may be a day or two where I’m here yet stuck with EDGE bandwidth rather than DSL. Part of this is Verizon’s fault, because they butchered the provisioning process and hung up my order for 10 days or so. But most of it is a simple lack of intelligence on my part. The keys to the cottage that actually has the phone line in it are, of course, on my keychain. The one that’s with my car, currently being shipped across the country and thus unavailable to me. I told you I was sharp.
Anyway, until the car gets here DSL will remain offline.
Mailing Address
In preparation for the transition out here, and after some reassurance from their staff, I did in fact decide to engage the Earth Class Mail forwarding service so please direct all your correspondence – regular, package or otherwise – to the following address:
Stephen O’Grady [or RedMonk]
ECM #6075
93 S. Jackson St
Seattle, WA 98104-2818
If you’re sending anything, in fact, to our Denver address in an effort to get it to one of my colleagues, please redirect it instead to that address or contact them for direct shipping.
Phone Numbers
As always, I’m always reachable via my cell or, better, Grand Central. The toll-free, in theory, is in the process of being repointed to a Grand Central like equivalent (if only because Grand Central doesn’t offer the ability to port in toll-free numbers), but at the current time it still rings my Denver number so expect some latency if you leave voicemail there.
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