As the post I tried to put up Friday morning encountered some strange error that prevent it from going up, I'll take this opportunity to start a running commentary on the weekend.

THURSDAY I count my weekend starting here in that I had to leave work early to go up home to get a variety of paperword related to a life insurance policy and forthcoming "international" travel. This necessitated stops in Salem and Manchester.

I anticipated a long time of it at the Salem courthouse, given the conventional wisdom/stereotype regarding government employees. I can say that from top to bottom I was pleasantly surprised with the helpfulness of all the staff, especially as I did everything ass-backwards. What I expected to be some Kafkaesque plunge into the nightmare of bureaucracy took all of 20 minutes (including a phone call to the insurance company).

This left me plenty of time to wander Salem before the train arrived. Did a little walking down memory lane as I passed the Peabody and Essex Museum and the Hawthorne Hotel. The museum was the focus of the first class I took in my elementary school's academically talented program. We went there every week, and it was a great deal of fun. The Hawthorne Hotel was the site of my junior prom. It was not a great deal of fun, at least not from a being with my date perspective. I think we both had fun with our respective group of friends.

Got up to Manchester, went to town hall to get birth and death certificates (how's that for the circle of life?), and walked up home. Don't know if it's an actual increase or just that I'm noticing more, but there were a lot of houses with for sale signs on them. And it was while I was at the house that I learned that my childhood home would soon replace the "for sale" sign for one saying "sold!"

We would up getting a significant amount less than we were originally asking, but that's getting to be the case up in that part of the state. Had we put the house up for sale quickly we'd probably have made more, but considering my folks bought the house for $14,000 in 1968, what we did get for it is very nice indeed.

Sarah came up, we spent a little time talking with my aunt, and then went home to prepare for our second long day's journey into that not so fresh feeling: a van ride to Ann Arbor, Michigan.