Today is the last day of my vacation. I've been off since last Friday and it has been an interesting vaction, with its series of ups and down.

The day I took off, I got obsessed with my website. I found a better way of organizing it and created a custom WordPress page type along with some taxonomies. This ended up changing the menus (and breaking some URLs). I like it so far. I also found out how to get excerpts in the stories, so I can write summaries for the taxonmy listings.

On Friday, we had a few problems. One of the biggest part of a trip is scheduling. It is more than just me, Fluffy, and EDM. We also had to coordinate with my brother and his, my father, my grandmother, and the talented Allison Moon who I met last year at WisCon. Now, that might be a strange combination, but there was a reason for it.

Last year after WisCon, we spent some time with my grandmother and she got to meet EDM for the first time. So, we figured to cut our travel time in half and spend the night in Madison and do it again.

WisCon happens to also be Memorial Day weekend and was a block away. It was a "cruel" thing for Fluffy, but the Inn on the Park is a wonderful hotel and we fell in love with it last WisCon. I also just finished Allison Moon's book, Lunatic Fringe, and she happened to be there. So, after a bit of schedule shuffling, I wandered on over to WisCon, chatted with her about writing and asked her to sign my book.

As a side note, I think Allison has that spark I've been looking for. It was a wonderful book and I couldn't put it down. I actually was jealous when I read it.

On Saturday, we had breakfast with my grandmother who thought EDM was the best behaved child she had ever seen (plug). She also insisted on telling everyone, including the waiters at the resturant.

After that, we headed up to the cabin and got to spend time with my brother (CME, if you are curious), his wife (D?E), and his little one (ADE). My dad was also there. Everyone was in good mood and EDM and ADE got a chance to play with each other. I got in trouble for showing ADE how to pull CDs out of a case, but that's okay. It was fun to watch.

I got The Lecture from my dad. Every time we got to the cabin, he points out that I'm still fat. Usually in various terms, but this year's lecture was rather... harsh. He's absolutely correct, I am still over 135 kg, but I wasn't expecting quite the third degree.

The rest of the trip was fairly good. EDM didn't sleep well, so I frequently got kicked out of the full-size bed (three don't fit well on there). We also put out the dock and I got to listen to my brother try to convince my dad to replace the dock with something easier. :) Engineering fun.

I got writing done on the trip, mainly working on my commission. It is due on Sunday and I was seriously behind on it. I only got 5k words during the trip, but on Tuesday, I managed to finish up the last 20k of the story. It is sitting on the laptop, waiting for time to pass so I can edit. I also managed to get the first draft of the serial chapter. This chapter was one of the hardest because it is a major event and something I've been planning for about six months. We'll find out Sunday if it works, it ended up being over 10k words.

When we got home, we did have a nasty surprise: water in the basement. The water meter started leaking again. I called a plumber, but they told me to call the city. A few hours later, the city maintenance guy came (and looked at me strangely when I asked for photo ID) and replaced the meter.

Finally, I did some home maintenance things. The guest bathroom shower needed sealing, the kitchen lights replaced, and the pond in front had to be releveled so it didn't leak. I got those done.

Needless to say... I'm ready to go back to work.