Okay, time to play catchup from LAST weekend. First, the convention was a GREAT time. In addition to hearing some GREAT speakers (and some not so great), the trip itself was a blast. Benji's Sunday morning talk was outstanding. I have probably heard four or five of his talks on CD or in person, and this was BY FAR the best I've heard. A description of the trip... or a highlight film if you will, is to follow, but there are a couple of pictures over here to amuse yourself with. We were scheduled to leave at 7PM from my place on Thursday. Needless to say, after grabbing food, frames for Mike, etc, we were actually on the highway at 9 PM. Now, I'm not sure what time Bob got up, but Dan and I had each gotten up at about 5AM, so we were STARTING tired. What followed could best be described as the never ending roadtrip from hell. We finished our 9 hour drive to Manhattan at about 11AM (yes, 14 hours). Part of the problem was that we had to stop about once an hour or two for a smoke. Also, we were broke. I mean dead poor. We were concerned that we might have to sell Bob off to be sodomized by truckers in order to finance our little trip. So we got to Mike's, took a four hour nap, and got back on the road to drive the four hours to Ocean City (which took 6 hours). By this time, we were somewhere between crabby and so slap-happy that the most minor thing was funny. We spent the weekend, much fun was had by all, then made the long, painful trip back to Detroit... laughing all the way. If I can find a way to transfer recordings from my Nextel phone to a .wav file, there are some hilarious recordings of Dan freaking out about the ridiculous toll situation to be heard. All in all, good time... and Mike better send the pics he took too :P

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The kids got their report cards Wednesday... improvement all around. I'm very, very pleased with both cards. I don't have a single complaint. They've improved in the areas that we discussed, they haven't regressed anywhere else... everything is wonderful. Tomorrow night, their mom is taking them for the night again. I'm more than a little frightened as to what will go on, but I can't see saying no when she's finally trying to see her kids. I just hope she continues to do the right things, and doesn't go back to her old ways of acting, dumping them off with random people and dragging them around at all hours of the night, etc. Hopefully, since she only bothers to try to see them two evenings per month, she'll make those two count.