I haven’t been traveling much lately, but I have a three trips scheduled over the next few months. This weekend I am going to Chicago for a couple of days at PITTCON, an instrumentation trade show. The following week I’ll be in Austin for four days doing administration training for a new CRM package we’re adopting. Then in May I’ll be going to Halifax for my daughter’s graduation from University.
I haven’t decided about NECON yet, though. It seems like a lot of the people I usually see aren’t going, so I’m thinking about giving it a miss this year, too.
This weekend I finished our taxes and got them turned in. We’re getting a decent refund this year but I applied some of it toward next year’s taxes since I have the recent project I’ve been working on and perhaps another as well to account for.
I posted my review for John Grisham’s The Associate last night. I also finished reading The Private Patient by PD James, which I’ll be reviewing this week. I got closer to finishing off a review for Cemetery Dance #61, but I still have to tie up some loose ends. I’m less optimistic that I’ll get a story done for the next MWA anthology. I only have about 10 days to do the whole thing and get it to their headquarters.
I was surprised by who got cut from The Amazing Race last night. I had high hopes for them, but one simple decision led to their downfall. In their position, I think I might have not taken the risk given the low benefit–only a few minutes’ advantage. I’ve traveled enough in Europe to know how frequently flights are late. They were traveling in the wrong direction to start off with. Seeing “Dracula’s Castle” was pretty cool, though.
Thin Ice, the newest Jesse Stone TV movie starring Tom Selleck, was pretty good. Jesse is a typical Robert B. Parker lead, basically Spenser if he’d had a less successful life and career. Paradise is his last stop on a downward spiral that is partly self-inflicted. His dog is more expressive than he is. I chuckled every time the dog was on screen, especially during the scene on the bus. The film was shot in and around Halifax and Dartmouth Nova Scotia, which is where I lived for eight years. There was a scene toward the end when Jesse Stone is leading the bad guy down the city street when I recognized parts of Barrington Street in the background. The movie managed several unrelated storylines very well, without getting bogged down in plot. A good installment in a good series.
