SoCal Buffistas: I will be in San Diego for work Sunday, June 1st through Thursday, June 5th. I can come in on Saturday if it means I can see some of you. I have to book the ticket in the next day or so. Discussion in F2F.

Ohio Buffistas: I suspect none of you live near Kent, but if you do, I will be at Kent State for a journalism fellowship for two weeks, and I have the weekend of July 12-13 free if there's any chance you want to get together.

Some pictures from last weekend when Shir, dcp and Sail Aweigh visited: [link]

There's also some Buffista pictures from my visit to Cincinnati on May 10th.

Now it can be told. About 3:30 on a Monday afternoon, I found out that the University of Georgia wanted to evaluate Arthur for a kidney transplant right away. Like the next day. So the next day, we got in the car for a 10-hour drive (in the rain) to Athens, GA.

Long story short -- Arthur has a new kidney, he's doing great, the donor (a big gray and white boy named Joey, from the character on I Friends, we drove home on Friday, and I'm a month behind on posts. Oh, yes, and Arthur is a celebrity in veterinary circles at UGA.

Oh, yes, and Athens, GA, is a great place to spend a month.

I am joining the select group of Buffistas to face the layoff ax. My last day is June 30. If anyone knows of job openings for eLearning or web editing types, please ping me. I live in NC, but would gladly transfer to the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, New England, or pretty much anywhere the temperature doesn't rise above 90F for multiple days in a row. I'm also great with telecommuting. Profile addy's good.

Could I get some sweet-passing~ma for my cat, Elliot? I've been treating him for lymphoma, but now his liver is failing and I'm having him put down after work. He was a sweet cat that loved everyone and a joy to be around. I'm going to miss him very, very much.

Some of you may remember the long post I made twelve years ago when I took Emmett to First Grade in the East Bay by BART for the first time. It was a bittersweet note because I'd lost the battle on whether Emmett was going to go to school in San Francisco or the East Bay, and it was consigning me to more than a decade of brutal commuting, often three and a half hours a day.

I couldn't imagine then how I would be able to do it. It seemed unlikely that I'd be able to stay in San Francisco. My pride and pleasure in his first day of school was mixed with all those darker feelings of despair.

And this morning I drove him to school for the last time, as he's graduating from Albany High School and will be attending Sonoma State College starting in late August.

Somehow those twelve years passed. Somehow I managed the driving. As happens so often in life, the insurmountable, impossible task that confronts you is completed.

And he's happy, and a good young man, smart and funny and loving. Well more accomplished in his childhood than I was. And I am done with that drive.

I have a new piece up at Hilobrow about the great 20s Jazz crooner, Cliff Edwards, aka, Ukelele Ike. But best known to most as the voice of Jiminy Cricket. He also originated and made famous songs as various as "Ja Da," "Singing in the Rain" (in 1929), and "Fascinatin' Rhythm." A mostly forgotten but hugely influential American vocalist. Check it out!

[link]

My Photoshopped tribute to the late, great Casey Kasem:

[link]