A synopsis of the last few days…. On Friday we flew from Boston to Seattle for a weekend with Chris and Celeste. On Saturday we drove down to Renton to ride the Spirit of Washington train over to the Columbia Winery for lunch. Then on Sunday we went up to the Joe Bar for coffee, swung by the cathedral to meet folks, and then after lunch went to the Seattle Art Museum to see the stunning exhibition on Spain in the Age of Exploration. We would have gone on to look at the other exhibitions in the museum, but a fire alarm put paid to that. (This is getting to be a habit.)
On Monday morning we flew down from Seattle to San Jose. The plan was that we should get to SJC around 10:30; then Merry would meet up with her parents and drive down to Carmel Valley, while I picked up a rental car and head up to Sun’s Menlo Park campus for an important meeting. Initially things went thoroughly pear-shaped. First, we got a phone call from our alarm service saying that the burglar alarm had gone off, and that the police had been dispatched. Then Alaska Air delayed our flight from 8:14 to 9:35. (At least that gave me time to talk to the Brookline police and confirm that everything seemed to be OK at home.) The flight down the coast was OK, although the clouds obscured Mount St. Helens, and it was rather bumpy. And then when we reached San Jose the rendezvous with Merry’s parents didn’t work as planned. AARGH!! But eventually everything was sorted out, and I was able to phone in to the first 30 minutes of the meeting while driving up 101; the rest of the meeting went just fine.