And now, That Was The Weekend That Was.....

[poltr1]

....for the weekend of April 15-17, 2005.

Fri 4/15: Forgot what I did in the morning. I think I slept in. Woke up, did my usual computer work, then went for lunch at either Jersey Mike's or Beef O'Brady's. I probaby was running some errands and doing shopping in the afternoon, as I typically do.

I was waiting for a call from dagonell, who, with wife Cigfran, were going to be presenting at this year's Midwest Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference (MAICS) at the University of Dayton. In the meantime, I got R dinner at Beef O'Brady's.

At around 8 pm, the call came. I went to their hotel room, where we talked for about an hour, catching up on old times. I've known both of them since 1984, when we were members of a now-defunct science-fiction-and-fantasy group in Buffalo called "The Galaxy Club". We haven't seen each other sunce the summer of '96, at the wedding of Dan and Jody (aka ethansmom). We adjourned for dinner at around 9 pm, going to India Palace. We stayed until closing time (10 pm), at which time the staff asked us to leave. We went back to the hotel room, where I stayed until 11:30.

Sat 4/16: Dagonell and Cigfran were busy with the MAICS conference, so it was a typical Saturday: Sleep in as much as we can, take The Girl to her Kindermusik class, get lunch, drive around while The Girl gets her nap in.

R got some "me time" in while I took M to the local park for some much-needed swinging and playgrounding. We had to take a quick break to come home and get a change of clothes as M had a poopy diaper that overflowed up to her back (ewwwww). Dinner was a return trip to India Palce, where we didn't stay long enough to get asked to leave.

Sun 4/17:
Started off as a typical Sunday morning: I get up to watch The Girl; R gets to sleep in a little. Picked up the film we dropped off on Saturday.

Went up to UD to find dagonell and Cigfran. The conference had let out and they called us. But they got our voice mail instead. Thankfully, they chose to find a shady spot and hang out for a while. I found them and gave the the nickel tour of Dayton.

The first stop was Woodland Cemetery, to visit the gravesites of the Wright Brothers (and their family -- their parents Milton and Susan, their sister Katherine, and their brother Otis, who died one month after birth). We also saw one of the more amusing tombstones in the cemetery -- one that simply said "Moist". (Nope, we didn't see the one for Preserved Smith. But we drove by Johnny Morehouse's grave.)

The next stop was Carilllon Park. There were plenty of exhibits, but to see them would have cost $8 and more available time than what we had. So we stayed in the atrium and saw the free exhibits. Noticed that the animatronic figures of Wilbur and Orville Wright had an updated audio tape for this year, but the motion controlling tape hadn't been updated.

The third stop was the Dayton Art Institute. Unfortunately, they closed for the day at 4 pm, and we got there at 4:05.

We did a drive-by of Fifth Third Field (where the Dayton Dragons were playing a game), Mendelson's, Riverscape, and Deeds Point Park.

Our next stop was the Wright Brothers Memorial, near Wright-Patteron AFB. We got to see a C-141 take off.

From there, we tried to get to visit the historical Huffman Prairie, where the Wrights did some more of their flying experiments, but the roadway was closed due to construction.

And then I got to treat my out-of-town guests to local cuisine: Skyline Chili. All three of us ordered 5-ways. They liked it.

Then one final stop at Meijer in search of goetta. No such luck. We parted ways in the parking lot and we returned home.

It was great to see old friends again.