I used to be vegetarian, but those days are long gone. The BBQ’s back in action in our back garden, we brought it out of hibernation when bert and his dad, David, arrived last saturday. Tasty. I’m going to use Flickr to host my pictures for a while and talking of which, I have one more Pro account to give away. I signed up before they got taken over by Yahoo and slashed their prices and increased their services, so they’re giving me 2 free accounts. I’ve offered one to me Dad, still waiting for him to accept. The other’s for the next guest mappee to add themself. Don’t forget to include your email address. If you’re already on there, just email me asking nicely. First come, first served.

Fruitful, sleepy day today. Am now 95% officially a US permanent resident, just have to wait for me green card to arrive. They stamped me passport in the meantime. It’s a much more efficient system now, instead of queuing up at 5am and hoping to get in, they’ve got an automated online appt system. I was in and out within 15 minutes. It would have been less but I had to go back to the car to leave my PDA there cos it can take photos which could be disastrous for homeland security apparently.

anyroad, below is a 9.5 second file of Monday evening in Ciao bella with Bert, his Dad, Sita and me. In the clip it’s just bert looking suspicious then the camera panning up to see the ring of redwoods which the outside dining area’s in. It’s a bit dark and as ever, dial up users may feel a little dissappointed. Bert and co headed south yesterday, you may see them keeping well within the speed limit in one of the following places in the next few days: Monterey, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Santa Barbara, L.A., Palm Springs, Las Vegas. It was grand to see them, I just wish I could have taken some time of work to spend relaxing with them. But that will come soon. He blogged cryptically…

CiaoBellawithBertandRedwoods.asf (585k file) I think ASF is fairly universally recognised. Comment me if not. Cheers- gwyn

normal blogging will be resumed shortly…
quick stream of consciousness from last Wed to today… meetings… reports… fielding phone calls… reporters cancelling… final preps for social… dog… sita in miami… sita back… dog… social event… tables… bert and dad arrive… barby in the back garden… party round gerwin’s… breakfast on the wharf… rehearsal for queer youth awards… played guitar… asparagus… atticus… anarchist… ciao bella… “‘china” the cat… car hire… workworkwork… pope… dentist… budgets… next week planning… dr. bert’s friend… Red? Tomorrow… berkeley… first 5… scrabble… thurs… INS/Dept of homeland nonsense… passport photos… announcements at work… ian’n’yuri’n’william… on sunday he rested or had a stab at it… monday… training… tues -> berkeley… trianing… training… training. dentist again. 3 x fillings, 1 x crown replacement.

Got home, got pounced on by the mutt, tied him to the front door so he could watch me mow the lawn with la poderosa. and our neighbour comes over to tell me atticus escaped from the back garden today and she’d had to pick him up off the street and put him back in. He got out through the side door somehow. So i mowed her lawn’n’all to return the favour. then walked the little bugger. now he’s still full of beans and acting up, i’m knackered and i’ve got to pull together a presentation for tomorrow morning and some other stuff too… jayziz.

Sita had a nice flight to Miami. She’ll be presenting stuff too tomorrow, in front of 400 or so people all ravenous for hot sociological debate. I’ve wished her well by phone which is just as well as it costs 10 bucks for wifi in her hotel and she’ll not be reading this.
anywell, back to the grind. maybe just one strongbad first…

I’ve been working since 8:30 this morning, and things keep piling up. It’s 5.45 i’m still at work and have tons to do. Hope the dog’s not being too loud in the back garden, he gets well narky if he hasn’t dragged us on a walk. I’m going to have to finish this at home… Just had to vent somewhere.

I’ll be voting by proxy… (don’t forget, mum). Didn’t think UKIP would come before Labour, mind…

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -17
Conservative -39
	Liberal Democrat 64
UK Independence Party -2
	Green 33

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For