Six weeks of not posting

Wow, life can really spin out of control at times.

When I last posted, I was going to write a review about a magnificent meal at L'Espalier in Boston.  I was going to write a review of an Adam Ant concert.

I was in the process of hiring a new employee at work.  Hoping to take some vacation in September to do some fly fishing. My new employee started the day after Labor Day, which gave me 14 work days to get him trained to cover for me while I was gone.  So far, I have to thank IBM for laying off such a smart and energetic developer.  If you think your company is better off without him, I'm really confused.

He picked things up really quickly.  I did a lot of last minute work so things would hopefully be fine while I was gone.  And then, one hour before my vacation started, I got a phone call from the nursing home where my mom lived.  She had died that afternoon.

My sister was on the other side of the country for a wedding.  My brother was on the other side of the world for business.  Logistically, everything was a nightmare.

We finally decided we would wait until 11 days after her death to have the funeral.  That gave everyone a chance to get from where they were to Pennsylvania.

I even managed to get in a week of fishing with my son.  We fished the Mad River, the Winooski River, Otter Creek, the Middlebury River, the upper Lamoille River and the Black River.  We caught fish at every spot except one.  I caught the biggest rainbow trout I've ever caught outside of Alaska on the Winooski.  It was a big fat pig of a fish.

Then, on to PA to visit with family and deal with the funeral.  It's a long drive to southern PA from Vermont.  One day was dedicated to just driving.  The next day, I managed to get to a CrossFit gym and work out with my wife.  I got to fly fish my favorite stream from when I was a teenager.  I met up with an old high school classmate for a while.  My wife and I made it to CF again the next day.  We had the funeral.  A small event with a small family gathering afterward.  My uncle pulled out four big boxes of memories of our family - some of the records he had from the 1800s were amazing.  I saw pictures of my grandparents and my great-grandparents when they were infants and teens.  There were more recent items too.  Someone had saved a newspaper article from kindergarten, when my picture had been in the paper.  Photos of my mom in high school.  She looked so happy then - completely unaware of the difficult life she would face in just a few short years.

And then, we drove home yesterday.  We took a detour to deliver my niece back to her home in Boston.  We got home really late.  I'm supposedly still on vacation until tomorrow, but I've been working most of the day so far.

And tomorrow, it's back to work full time.  Somehow, almost two weeks just didn't seem like enough.  It probably doesn't help that I worked more than half of my vacation days.  I'd rather be fishing.  And, later this afternoon, I may very well sneak out for a couple hours of fishing.  My son is off work today, and a little fly fishing may help my brain to unwind a bit.